I went to a lovely birthday party last night. The company was most entertaining, the food was delicious, the cake, wow. For post dinner party time amusement, the host had rented a karaoke machine.<\/p>\n
I don’t like to sing in front of people I don’t know. I’m too nervous. But that did not stop me from picking out all the things that were wrong with the karaoke playlist that came with the setup. Lest you think I’m an uncharitable b*tch, my sentiments were echoed by more than one person present, including the host who had rented the machine. Overlooking the lack of Eagles songs, of Billy Ocean (Get Outta My Dreams and Into My Car), of Torch and Twang (one Patsy Cline does not count) my date and I derided the lack of a set of karaoke tunes for the disaffected.<\/p>\n
The artists we felt were missing? Lou Reed, Tom Petty, Fiona Apple, Nick Cave, Billy Bragg, to name a few. There was no Llyle Lovett (If I had a boat), there was one Blondie song (Heart of Glass, but where’s Rapture?) there was no LA Woman by the Doors. There was no Freebird with the text “Insert air guitar solo here.” New York New York and My Way were on the list, but where was Come Fly with Me for the wanna be Old Blue Eyes? There were no Peggy Lee tunes.<\/p>\n
It occured to me as I was looking over the list (and being snarky) that this was someone’s job, this business of picking the most popular Alan Jackson or Shakira tune for inclusion in the karaoke kit. A little fishing on the web turns up a vast selection of possibilities – Marvin Gaye and U2 and Sinead O’Connor. That’s more like it. Cue up the Prince and get out the Raspberry Beret, okay?<\/p>\n
I dropped in to see some neighbors earlier today and told them about my karaoke experience. “Yeah,” they said, “you need to be in a small space, you have to know everyone, and you need to be doing some serious drinking. That’s the key to karaoke.” They recommended a place called Seattle’s Best Karaoke<\/a>. Squeeze in with your pals and bring your own booze. I checked out their list<\/a> and wow, they seem to have an awful lot of stuff that I thought was missing from last night’s set – including two Lou Reed songs – and some stuff I hadn’t thought of. Ella Fitzgerald. Duh.<\/p>\n I have terrible stage fright. I’ve been working on it, not because I have any great ambition to perform, but because I would like, when someone asks me in an airport or at a bus stop if that thing is a ukulele and how bout a tune… I would like to be able to not freak out. A uke friend told me that I should play in front of people whenever I get the chance, that I’d get used to it. A nice idea, I think, but I still turned down the mic at karaoke.<\/p>\n Tomorrow, though, is open mic at the ukulele club holiday shindig. And yes, I’m going to play.<\/p>\n [tags]karaoke, ukulele[\/tags]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I went to a lovely birthday party last night. The company was most entertaining, the food was delicious, the cake, wow. For post dinner party time amusement, the host had rented a karaoke machine. I don’t like to sing in front of people I don’t know. I’m too nervous. But that did not stop me … <\/p>\n