Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 147
Oops ... did I sing that out loud?
D
o you ever spontaneously break out in
song?
Now, I’m not talking about
being compelled to twirl and
belt out “The Sound of Music” every time you’re on a
grassy hillside in Austria. I
mean, everyone does that.
(And they make videos of it
for YouTube.)
Nor am I talking about
screaming “Getcha motor
runnin’” against the wind
whenever you crank up your
Vespa. Again, this is a socially accepted norm.
What I’m talking about
is the occasional, irresistible urge to underscore a special moment in time by giving
musical voice to a corresponding lyric from a popular
song ... in public.
Sometimes, the lyric is an
exact fit, and it can actually take the place of real conversation in that moment. Say,
when you look into your lady’s eyes and croon, à la Rod
Stewart, “Have I told you lately that I love you?”
This can be the perfect
thing to offer her, depending
on, (A) how well you sing, (B)
who else is within earshot and
(C) whether intimate conversation is included in your evening’s $200 “agreement.”
And then, sometimes, your
lyric is only sortof annoyingly
related to the moment.
Take, for example, when
the bartender pokes a slice
of lime into your Corona and
you sing to him, à la Harry
Nilsson, “You put the lime in
the coconut ...” and he gives
you that tired look that says
“You aren’t the first mynah
bird to perch on a stool.”
Well, as you may have surmised, I am afflicted with this
tuneful spontaneity, which,
some years back, my daughter lovingly labeled as “songisitis.” (We hereby take ownership of and copyright the
term.)
You see, she was younger
then, and often trapped in the
truck with me. She and her
sister certainly often heard
“Have I told you lately that
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
I love you?” (So sweet). But
they also heard “What’s the
matter with kids today?” and
“Short people got no reason
to live.”
And God help them if they
mentioned a friend named
Jeremiah because, you know,
he “was a bullfrog.”
This is aside from the
countless original lyrics
I sang to them, such as “I
know it’s hard, but did you remember to pack your shin
guards?”
Good stuff.
Now I, for one, find songisitis incredibly endearing.
And on certain happy occasions, it can even become a
group project.
It is said that, when your
friends have musical Tourette
syndrome, life is like a Broadway show. Given the right lubrication, after you offer your
mates the first line of a song,
they may spontaneously offer
the next.
Or they may take away
your car keys.
I think there is a gray area
here between songisitis and
musical Tourette syndrome
(MTS), which I read is actually a problem for, you know,
some people. One study indicates that 70 percent of
the population has a form of
MTS.
It’s usually found in musicians and people who listen to large amounts of music
(duh). And MTS is triggered
when the subject is exposed to
a stressful or uncomfortable
situation.
Well, that leaves me out because I’ll do it anytime.
But the study is a hoot in itself, with the conversation
with one study subject going
like this:
Researcher: “How do you
feel?”
Test subject (singing):
“Sometimes, I feel, I’ve got to
(bangs twice on the table), run
away” (Soft Cell).
Researcher: “Are you hungry?”
Test subject: “Gimme
fuel, gimme fire, gimme that
which I desire” (Metallica).
Researcher: “Picture....”
Test subject: (singing)
“yourself in a boat on a river,
with tangerine trees and marmalade skies” (Beatles).
I’m sorry; I do not see this
as a problem. These are imaginative answers to mundane
questions. And such responses can turn the dull and dreary moments of life into uplifting art.
What a wonderful world it
would be if people sang their
responses throughout the day
— especially during important business meetings and
murder trials.
However, I will offer one
caveat here. Every great
now and then, your song lyr-
ic might be inappropriate to
the current surroundings —
though this is unintended, at
least on a conscious level.
Take, for instance:
You’re on the street corner and a fully tattooed, fully pierced girl with a Mohawk
hairstyle stomps up to you in
her heavy black boots and asks
if you have a cigarette lighter. As your eyes zero in on the
string of shiny silver links connecting her nose to her ear, you
hear your own voice singing,
somewhere, à la Aretha Franklin, “Chain, chain, chain, yeah,
chain of fools.”
(Oops ... did I sing that out
loud?)
Or maybe:
You’re helping 90-year-old
Aunt Sarah out to the garden.
She adjusts her sun bonnet and
says, “I’m going to leave my
hat on.”
And you can’t help it —
you hear the sexy piano music bouncing in and you find
yourself in throaty voice sing-
ing, à la Joe Cocker, “You can
leave your hat on. ...” and then
you get the visual of what that
song is about — and shudder. Your song trails off into
mumbles.
(Aaawkward.)
And finally:
You’re in the men’s room,
face to the wall, and you impulsively sing, à la Neil
Young, “Long may you ru-uhun, long may you run.”
And the guy facing the wall
next to you says, “Thanks, it’s
the Flowmax.”
(Oops.)
I’m just sayin’, songisitis
isn’t a bad thing. But there’s a
time and a place.
Jim Walker’s “songs of life”
are pretty much his own opinion. Comment at jwalker@
the-signal.com — or tweet
at @SCVSignal or @DontSeriously, where he is forming a chapter of Songisitis
Anonymous (as if you could
be anonymous with this affliction).
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