MEGAN NICOL REED
on avoiding karaoke
On avoiding karaoke
There is a theory that if you want your child to be a successful adult, a well-balanced winner firing on all cylinders, then you should push them, not toward the first thing they show any aptitude for, but toward that at which they are weakest. Thus the bookworm should be cajoled into signing up for rippa rugby; the wallflower into joining the debating club … you get the idea. It’s only natural though, isn’t it, that we are attracted to that at which we excel, or at least display a modicum of talent in, but shy away from that at which we suck. I was thinking about this the other night, thinking as I sat there in that room throat-ticklingly thick with dry ice, at that table of fun-loving merrymakers, about how things might have turned out if only my parents had taken this approach. And even though I was trying to look like I was having a good time, like I was having the time of my life, it was actually unbearable. It was completely torturous. It was bloody karaoke.
I am in no doubt that if I could sing, even just a little, I’d be up there in a shot. Claiming my 15 minutes of fame. Living out my every fantasy; audience held lightly in palm, spellbound by my masterful rendering of Man, I Feel like a Woman. But when you have spent a lifetime miming the words, to the national anthem and funeral dirges, to campfire sing-alongs and Christmas carols, karaoke is hell. Probably because I never utter them out loud, lyrics don’t stay with me either. So that even with the words running along the bottom of the screen — words that, weirdly, regardless of what they denote, always seem to be super-imposed over a video of happy white people throwing handfuls of autumn leaves at each other or water-skiing on a lake — I can never manage more than a line or two before petering out in a kind of tuneless mumble lamely masquerading as a hum.
I’m not sure when I realised I couldn’t sing. In the same way that I can stand on my head, that I don’t particularly like cauliflower, it’s just something I’ve always known. I do have this one very clear memory, however, of driving home, aged 8, from dinner at my aunt and uncle’s, my brother, mother and I all singing our hearts out, my father refusing to join in. C’mon, said my mother, how about Big Spender? It’s more talking than singing, she coaxed him. And I can remember how cruelly the three of us laughed. I’m musical, aren’t I, I asked my mother, in the slight awkwardness that followed. She paused. Like your side of the family, I prompted. Her silence was deathly.
Still, better to be aware of one’s failings than to labour under false pretensions. And karaoke is the Venice Biennale, the US Open, the Pulitzer Prize, of self-delusion. Although I try to avoid it at all costs, over the years there have been various inescapable invitations: to birthday karaoke, work-do karaoke, conference karaoke. And I’ve reached the conclusion that I am in the minority; that while I’ll be busy trying to hide my empty song selection card underneath my glass, all around me will be plenty just gagging to get up there, to bust out a flawed Sweet Home Alabama, a mirror-practised Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay. Over the course of an evening, certain types will always take up the mic. The guy whose drunken crowd-surfing is momentarily funny, but two verses into Born to Run, you wish would sod off. He won’t though. He’ll be back. Just you wait; he hasn’t butchered Bohemian Rhapsody yet. Then there’s the one, running around in a state of high excitement, bullying everyone into having a go, having a bit of a laugh, inevitably to be found sulking in a corner later in the evening after her I Think We’re Alone Now, complete with choreographed dance moves, fell flat. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, there’s the one you’d never pick, forgettable in every which way, until, that is, he opens his mouth and something beautiful comes out.
I can never manage more than a line or two before petering out in a kind of tuneless mumble lamely masquerading as a hum.