It’s got all the emotion — the plaintive pleas of someone who just can’t get through to the person they love dearly, the dramatic nostalgia of sepia tones and the barren cry of lonely winter, and even some fairly good goldenrod-colored hair. It even begins with an outdated telephone and a cat-eyed woman with an air of mystery singing longingly, “Hello…”
Most people by now are reading this description and thinking that this is old news – we all know that Adele’s new single makes us miss people we never even knew. But wait – there’s a twist. It’s not Adele, and she did nobody wrong, and she’s not singing about unrequited love. The only thing she’s sorry for is eating too many Cheetos. By the time this “Hello” version is over, the plaintive pleas of Adele will have been replaced by the laughter of moms around the world who never quite figured out algebra themselves, much less how to get their kids to do their algebra homework. Welcome to “Hello From The Mother Side.”
Singer-songwriter and mother Emily Mills from Waco, Texas, has used the famous struggles of motherhood as a sounding board for her slightly jaded version of Adele’s comeback hit “Hello.” Gone are the days of lamenting about the thousand times you tried to reach your lover. You found him, and you apologized, and he accepted. No longer a million miles away, 20 years have passed and now you are eating Cheetos for lunch as you ask your teenager “Hello? Can you hear me?” as she blows off her homework for the thousandth time.
Watch This Mom Straight Up Crush The Adele Parody Game https://t.co/DU9TdrZQUp pic.twitter.com/3suI6VB6d7
— MTV News (@MTVNews) December 12, 2015
Of course, this parody isn’t actually harming Adele, who just announced she’s going on tour and broke several records with her third album 25 . Now 27-years-old, Adele is the mother of a little boy and can probably relate to the parody herself. The Mother side, of course, is quite different from The Other side, and it’s definitely not the outside. It’s up close and personal – discarded wet wipes, baby weight gain, plucking chin hairs out that, alas, weren’t there when we were younger and free.
According to Metro , the only thing that is tearing the woman apart in the parody is the fact that she’s out of Pinot Noir and toys are over the floor. To add insult, she can’t seem to reach her teenage daughter.
“Hello from the mother side. I must have tried a thousand times to tell her this homework is really breaking my heart. But when I try it really doesn’t tear her apart anymore.”
“Hello from the Motherside,” an @Adele parody with 1.8 million views, is by a #Baylor alum: https://t.co/BgqAcJt1dx pic.twitter.com/Pdueyc8PlM
— BaylorProud (@BaylorProud) December 14, 2015
The parody is sung with the same whimsical loneliness that Adele is so famous for and has some aspects that total heartbreak does – beneath the humor seems to lie an anthem that perhaps although not alone, mothers aren’t making the connections that they would like to. “The Mother Side” seems to imply a woman stranded on one side of the glass alone, peering at a world she used to know but can no longer touch.
Maybe that’s why the parody is such a hit with moms everywhere – parents have long lamented about feeling alone despite being surrounded by people. Toddlers aren’t well known for their intellectual conversation, and teenagers aren’t well known for their ability to emotionally connect to anyone but their friends. Mothers often end up bearing the brunt of the homework war or science project despite their best efforts to raise responsible adults.
But somehow, it happens. The 14-year-old Emma who wouldn’t do her homework has emerged as a beautiful young woman who sings heart-stopping music herself, or perhaps becomes the kind of mother you wanted to be all those years to her. And while the parody is no doubt humorous, it touches on that topic that is simultaneously beautiful, hard, deafening, and silent. And, of course, eventually runs out of time.
So hello from the mother side…
[Photo by Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images]
