A relatively large contigent of my Mormon friends went out karaoking last night again. We purposefully decided to go early, when not many people would be there, so we could sing even more than usual. Sara, the girl who arranged this outing, assured me that this was her favorite place (not terribly crowded or smokey), and had lots of songs in English.
Happily, everything Sara described was accurate, except the "lots of songs in English" part. Most of the karaoke places I´ve been to have had enormous lists of English music; this one only three pages. None of the songs were newer than 6 or 7 years ago, and 85% were by guys. (Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and Tom Petty made up approximately 1/2 of all options). So, since we were the only people in the bar, I asked them to put on one of the Beatles songs I knew, and rapidly discovered that no, anything by a guy was keyed WAY too low for me.
Thus, between all of the Spanish songs my friends kept singing, I looked for songs by girls that I knew in the list...and discovered one I knew I would be able to sing well. I capitulated and told the bartender (who was trying to flirt with me) to queue it up. Then I grabbed the microphone and gave a (pretty good, if I may say so myself) rendition of ...
"My Heart Will Go On" (from Titantic)
:: sputter, gasp, gag ::
For those of you who remember 10 years ago, you may recall that Titantic was an absolute obsession of every teenage and adolescent girl in America, who saw it every weekend for months. All of the "clique" girls in middle school talked about it incessantly, and that one song played on the radio dozens of times every day. Partially because I was a noncomforist, partially because I wasn´t allowed to see the movie and thus needed to provide justification for my uncoolness, and partially because I saw straight through the immature obsession of my peers, I purposefully came up with ways to attack the movie, and above all, this song. At the age of 11 I wrote a complete parody of the lyrics which I sang just to annoy the girls who took the film so religiously. (Seriously, the first time I offered my alternative version, (at the end of the school day, walking in single file line to the busses), about 5 of these girls acted as if I had just committed blasphemy, and attempted to condemn me as a heretic).
The wording wasn´t particuarly impressive; I was only 11. But I still remember how it began...
"I hate Titantic/ It´s boring / it´s stupid / How I wish it wouldn´t go on..."
Thus, in the great irony of singing this song 10 years later in a local Karaoke bar in Spain, I feel in large part as if I´ve betrayed my anti-consumerist adolescent self. And no matter how much I may be trying to justifying my actions to myself this morning (seriously, the choice was Celine Dion, Britney Spears, or the Spice Girls), I´m still rather disgusted -- almost like I need to repent.
Maybe I´m an unrighteous heretic after all.
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4 comments:
*Ahem*
I was in college, and I got absolutely SICK of hearing the girls at the Institute play that song over, and over, and over...
Which led me to write a parody that went, "I hate Titanic/It's boring/It's stupid/It just goes on and on...Without any rhyme scheme/just dull repetition/there is no point to this song...Near/Far/Wherever you are/Heed my warning and flee/Lest you die with a yawn..."
When I came home from college that summer, you still had a month of school left, and I taught it to you.
Now, I readily believe you took my version, tweaked it, and created your own.
You were young. Likely your memory is a bit blurry. I shan't sue for plagiarism. But I do respectfully request that you credit or cite me.
Sorry Gail -- as you were the mature person, I readily believe you´re version of the story. See, as I was thinking abuot this last night, I also remembered you singing those lyrics. I even remembered some of your lines, and thought "no, those were Gail´s lines...my lines were different...". I couldn´t remember who had had the initial idea, or if it was your idea, and then I had changed the words, or something like that. Additionally, I had placed this memory in approximately March of that year, (5th grade), which would have been before you came back from college. Thus, I ultimately concluded that you and I had done similar things with only minimal influence on each other and I couldn´t remember who was first, so I neglected to mention you in my initial entry.
(One of us also had a line about their only being 3 notes in the song--do you remember who that was?)
Thanks. I don't remember putting the three-note thing in my lyrics, so you can take credit for it. (I think the song actually had six notes. But, yes, it was fairly tuneless. Good call.) It is quite possible we each wrote parodies independently. I mean, it wouldn't be hard to do. In fact, it would have been hard to resist.
Yeah, sorry. You do need to repent.
That song is an abomination.
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