“It Gets Better” in music: 6. LeAnn Rimes & GMCLA – The Rose
Posted by Jim DeLaHunt on 30 Apr 2012 at 10:51 pm | Tagged as: LGBT
Last July, I posted number 7 in my list of top favourite musical contributions to the It Gets Better project. After an interval, I’m continuing with number 6.
If you haven’t come across It Gets Better, then run don’t walk to the It Gets Better project site. Watch some of the over 10,000 videos contributed by people, from all walks of life, with a common theme: encouraging youth who are being bullied, and perhaps contemplating ending their lives, to believe that life gets better after high school — and that they too should stick around to see it happen. The project started in late 2010, and no longer has the new-project enthusiam. Still, the passion of the messages and the diversity of the messengers is moving.
Number 6 is a guest appearance by country singer LeAnn Rimes with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles (GMCLA). I found this video after finding another, even more impressive, It Gets Better video by the GMCLA. That will appear later in the countdown. This is a beautifully sung performance of a wonderful song, and that alone is good. But what really tops it off is the heartfelt, at times tearful, introduction by Rimes — along with the supportive but sassy interjections by the chorus.
This performance is an example of the world of professional entertainment, bringing its polish to the It Gets Better series. Bravo to Rimes and to the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles!
Enjoy, and see you again in a few days. No, really.