That nostalgic feeling

The Man in Chair exclaims, “I love playing my records - it’s as if the musicals come to life in my apartment” as he drops the needle onto The Drowsy Chaperone (on stage at the MTC.) The cast breaks into a rousing live musical number circa 1928 and I go… misty.

These are actual uncontrollable tears of joy coupled with the feeling. The sentimental feeling. The nostalgic feeling. The odd part is I’ve never experienced this song and dance number before. Why do I feel affected as much as if I grew up in the Jazz Age?

It could be because I am immensely addicted to CJNU 107.9 FM, Winnipeg’s nostalgia radio station. Tales of love and loss float over the airwaves. Themes that keep recurring over and over throughout history are set to jaunty pop songs and dramatic radio plays. I figured I had become immune to extreme fluctuations in emotion but the stories about human nature, joy and sometimes sadness they play on CJNU affect me to the point where I’m “ac-centuating the positive” in public and “foolishly rushing into love.”

Oh, here comes that feeling again. This time it comes from Claude Morrison, founding member of acappella group The Nylons, as he pops and locks his way around the stage in front of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Claude is shaking with the feeling and singing the feeling in a beautiful falsetto. I can’t get enough of the feeling. I need more musicals, more classic songs, more…

Sadly the volunteer-run CJNU doesn’t broadcast for four days at the end of the each month. The Drowsy Chaperone finished its run on Saturday and The Nylons are off to Holland then to perform with the Kitchener/Waterloo Symphony Orchestra.