A Choir for the Complaining

Complaint choirs have formed in Australia, Germany, Canada, Korea, Singapore, Finland, Russia and other places. All over the world, people are gathering to sing about their frustrations.

Got a pet peeve, a growing gripe or a common complaint? Here’s an option: Set it to music and round up your neighbors to sing about it.

If you do, you’ll be part of a new fad that’s breaking out around the world: choirs for complainers.

The idea is quite simple. You invite people to list the things that irritate them, hire a local musician to convert those complaints into lyrics and set them to music. What you have then is a bellyaching band belting out their beefs together.

Such a choir of complainers in Birmingham, England, recently intoned “The slugs will eat my lettuce/and dogs won’t clean their poo/I haven’t won the lottery/Life’s going down the loo,” and then launched into a rousing refrain of: “I want my money back!”

In Chicago, another combo of carpers performed their anthem of annoyance: “Chicagoland! Chicagoland! Sounds like we live in an amusement park ... We don’t want the Olympics here! ... Only tourists ...