Karaoke II

Even though I recently swore off ever performing Karaoke again, I was at a Karaoke bar in Boston and thought that it would be a good idea to have another go at it. I wasn’t much better this time around, but I didn’t drive away any suitors.

But more interestingly than my recent comeback is the story of the Taylor Swift singer coverist.

The reason that I was in Boston was to see my former roommate in his play, Shear Madness. Though he has been in various plays in New York, I have forgotten to go to every one and it was becoming embarrassing that I had never seen him perform. Around the same time that I was contemplating my friendship neglect, my mother told me she had hotel points that were going to expire soon and someone needed to use them. Finally, I have Friday’s off from work in the summer, and most people don’t so I didn’t have a lot of Friday plans. It was the perfect storm. I would go to Boston to see my roommate’s Friday night performance, while *erasing any of my mother’s guilt over what was almost a wasted hotel stay.

I spent the day sightseeing in Boston by myself, which was one of my top 5 summer experiences, and in the evening, attending Shear Madness. After this, I joined my roommate, his friends and other cast members in the theatre’s bar that was also a karaoke lounge. “Didn’t I just swear this off?” I thought, but after absolutely no need of convincing me to come out of retirement, I began looking through the book of songs, hoping to find one of the three that I know well enough to sing publicly. I ended up with “Walk Like an Egyptian.”

I told my karaoke tale of woe to the group, and a very pretty girlfriend told me her “trick” to karaoke. “I always sing a Taylor Swift song,” she said. It seems that people like Taylor Swift enough to enjoy her performance, and I guess it isn’t done all the time, like Queen is. Also, a fair amount of Taylor’s songs are fast, and fast is always more fun to listen to.

The Taylor Swift-singing girlfriend was a petite and completely adorable girl-next-door type who everyone should be jealous of. Not to mention, she is a successful karaoke artist! I was looking forward to her turn, while thinking, “I wish I had chosen Taylor Swift!” and also, “I wish I was half as pretty as her.”

When her name was called she proceeded to the stage area, looking dwarfed—and all the more precious—by the empty space around her and even by the microphone in her hand. She began to sing, “I was riding shot-gun with my hair undone…”

Oh god, she was terrible. She awkwardly spoke-sang, like a child would, and on top of that, missed half of the notes. She wasn’t a belter or anything, so it wasn’t painful to listen to, it was just sweetly awful.

“Oh honey,” I thought, “it isn’t your ‘trick’ that makes people like watching you sing.” And regardless of how terrible she was, I was not alone in encouraging her to go up and pick another song.