Me, Karaoke and Bobby McGee

Cringe-worthy karaoke stories.

I never sang the Janis Joplin version of Bobbie McGee. At least, not in public. Can you imagine me trying to sing that last verse? With an audience?

Hey now Bobby now now Bobby McGee yeah
Lo lo LO lolo LO lo laa, lololo LO lolo LO lolo LO lolo LO la laa
Hey now Bobby now now Bobby McGee yeah
Lord, I called him my lover, I called him my man
I said I called him my lover, did the best I can
C'mon, hey now Bobby now, hey now Bobby McGee, yeah
Lo lo Lord, a Lord, a Lord, a Lord, a Lord, a Lord, a Lord, oh
Hey, hey, hey, Bobby McGee, Lord

My voice is more suited to Gordon Lightfoot. Or early Billy Joel.

I was introduced to karaoke in the latter half of the Reagan era. A friend liked to frequent a big box Chinese restaurant on South Lake Union in Seattle that featured a stage and open mic for karaoke. I remember being fascinated regular folks were willing to risk making fools of themselves for all the world to see. Flailing at singing a song that had no chance of being better than the original.

Even so, it was titillating and a little voyeuristic to watch them give it a go. You might say it falls into the rubber-necking at a car wreck situation. Painful but you couldn’t possibly muster the energy to look away.

I never got the courage at that well lit Chinese restaurant. But just like the protagonist of Being There - the gardener mistaken for philosopher president material - I liked to watch. I figured that was all I would ever do - watch.

During the Wolf on Wall Street era a bunch of us starting bowling. This was in the time before someone noticed bowling alleys were losing their cachet. The time when sociologists were speculating that the general turn away from communal activities like bowling was a sign of some greater malaise. (I wonder if those sociologists are still with us?)

It was also during the time of The Big Lebowski and, in case you don’t remember, bowling played a huge role in the Coen Brothers cult classic. The rug tied the room together, but bowling tied the madcap plot-free movie together.

Our group would spice up our night bowling by making a non-monetary wager between teams. The bet was the winning team decided what song the losing team must sing in the bowling alley’s sad, poorly lit lounge. It considerably upped the ante to every match. The first time I recall adding this feature to our bowling nights, my team won and we selected Roxanne by The Police, which has to be one of the tougher songs to sing.

I don’t know what the lounge denizens thought of that karaoke version of Roxanne but I will never forget what one bedraggled drunkard thought of my first attempt at karaoke when my team lost the bet and we had to sing Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart. It didn’t help I didn’t know the song but what also didn’t help was my sidekick not only didn’t know the song, he couldn’t carry a tune if his life depended on it. I think he smirked and giggled through most of it, while I struggled to match the words with the tune and beat.

The inebriated Billy Ray Cyrus aficionado walked right up to us and slurred/spat/drawled, “You guys suuuuuuuckk.”

My karaoke career was off to a brilliant start.

You might think an experience like that would have ended any idea of ever attempting to sing publicly again. Normally, it might have. But sometime during this period when karaoke was all the rage in Seattle one of the lounges started advertising a karaoke contest to win tickets to a Bob Dylan concert in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I loved Bob Dylan. Especially the album Blood on the Tracks. My office co-workers knew this and they egged me on to enter. I knew practically all of the songs on Blood on the Tracks by heart. I probably hummed them around the office. I sang Tangled Up in Blue as if I had written it myself. The other salient point was that I had never seen Bob Dylan live in concert. This was my chance.

Early one morning the sun was shining
I was laying in bed
Wondering if she'd changed at all
If her hair was still red
Her folks they said our lives together
Sure was going to be rough
They never did like Mama's homemade dress
Papa's bankbook wasn't big enough
And I was standing on the side of the road
Rain falling on my shoes
Heading out for the East Coast
Lord knows I've paid some dues
Getting through
Tangled up in blue

The karaoke contest indicated that you could only pick from Bob Dylan songs. Perfect. I felt I sang Tangled Up in Blue well enough to step in for Bob if the occasion ever arose. I knew the nasally parts. I knew exactly what words to emphasize.

So now I'm going back again
I got to get to her somehow
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't know what they're doing with their lives
But me, I'm still on the road
A-heading for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point
Of view
Tangled up in blue

So, with the encouragement of my fellow office workers and the confidence of Mary Lou Retton, America’s Sweetheart, on the uneven bars, I signed up for the contest and began rehearsing in earnest.

The day of the contest arrived and I could not have been more ready. However, when I got to the venue - yet another Seattle lounge but this one had a view of the water - I discovered I had failed to read the fine print. It was true you had to sing a Bob Dylan song, but the Dylan songs you had to choose from were limited to four.

Tangled Up in Blue was not one of them.

In fact, nothing from Blood on the Tracks was included. My heart sank and I was about to skip out and that was when my tiny band of supporters showed up to cheer me on. I would not be surprised if I took an audible gulp and looked through the short list again to see what my options were.

Like a Rolling Stone

Blowin’ In the Wind

Lay, Lady, Lay

Maggie’s Farm

I thought to myself I could play it safe with any of the first three, or, I could go out on a limb and try to pull off one of his not-so-melodic tunes. The other part of my calculation was that very few people would opt for the less melodic tune, so my karaoke entry might stand out. My chance for the Grand Prize would be enhanced. I filled out the form, selected Maggie’s Farm and went and claimed a seat in the audience.

My supposition was correct. No one who sang before me selected Maggie’s Farm. Everyone took the easy way out. I heard my name called and I took the stage. A DJ from the local radio station who was sponsoring the contest handed me the song sheet. He was both the emcee and the DJ and he controlled the music system.

The song began and that’s when I knew I was fucked.

This was the song I was meant to sing:

This was the song I had in my head. The fact that Bob can’t flip the pages fast enough to keep up with his own lyrics should give you an idea of my predicament:

If you’re not a Dylan fan you might have a hard time appreciating this but, somehow, in my mind, I had mixed up Maggie’s Farm with Subterranean Homesick Blues. They were just similar enough that the tune and cadence for SHB was stuck in my head and try as I might I couldn’t get on track with the words before me, the tempo I was hearing live with the tempo in my head. The DJ tried mightily to redirect me. The fact that I don’t remember him guffawing in my face speaks volumes. His restrained professionalism must have been stupendous. If this had been The Gong Show, I would have been gonged in the first 30 seconds. Maybe 20.

And not a good gong, presuming there was one.

I’ve blacked out much of this most embarrassing moment from my memories but, I believe, the radio host may have restarted the song more than once to give me the opportunity to get on track. I never did. For whatever reason, I kept trying to fit the square Subterranean Homesick Blues into the round hole of Maggie’s Farm. I was fortunate they were only having contestants sing about 2 minutes of each song. Of course, many off-tune, out-of-sequence words can be crammed into 120 seconds. You can make an ass of yourself many times over in that small window of time.

I doubt anyone in the crowd was perfectly sober, but neither was anyone drunk. Out of sheer politeness, and probably because no one could wrap their minds around the train wreck they just witnessed, no one approached the stage to tell me I sucked.

You would think this would have ended my karaoke career, but you would be wrong.

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Have you seen the video of our first robot citizen, Sophia? Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Also, since I mentioned robots, the 2012 movie Robot & Frank I found to be wonderful. Fun premise and an excellent cast. Highly recommend.

I would be lying if I said I was in relaxation mode now that people I consider to be adults are in charge of our government. But I needed a break and I figured you did as well. Cheers! - JLM