September 7, 2022
My Favorite (Karaoke) Song
Refresh the Soul 30-Day Challenge: Day 7
It starts with some organ music, which is great because people look up from their drinks like, what the heck? Then the familiar guitar-strum pattern starts, and everyone knows it’s “Faith” by George Michael.
You probably wouldn’t think I was one to do karaoke at all, and in fact I never tried it until my early 40s. A previous girlfriend of mine loved to do karaoke, and in fact, she’s very good at it. I started to go with her to her favorite karaoke bar, a small and proudly divey gay bar (the kind of place that doesn’t serve food except for single-serve bags of potato chips).
I’m not a singer myself, so I had to do some thinking to come up with songs that aren’t too hard to sing and don’t hit any high notes. I’d flip through the catalogs of titles listed on the laminated pages of overstuffed three-ring binders on the bar, looking for possibilities.
Sometimes I researched karaoke songs at home on YouTube, too. It’s a bit antithetical to American-style karaoke to look for songs in a quiet place without the distractions of noise and beer, but I’m a researcher at heart. We never did try the private karaoke room experience — I imagine that might be a fun outing, too.
Of course, when it came to karaoke, I gravitated toward songs from the 1980s, thinking back to my childhood and watching MTV with my brother, ever-mindful of our mom’s policies that she would 100% cut us off from MTV forever if she caught us watching specific videos that she deemed inappropriate.
We never even tried to watch the videos she’d banned. We knew she’d somehow walk into the TV room at the exact moment we were watching and catch us.
George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” was at the top of mom’s forbidden list (tied with Madonna’s “Open Your Heart,” which was partially set in a peep show). But even though the video for “Faith” included some scantily-clad ladies, and lingering close-ups of George Michael’s tight, faded jeans, we were allowed to watch.
Plus, it’s a really hard song to dislike. It’s so catchy and affirming. Maybe it snuck through because the chorus seems so wholesome: he’s got to have faith-a-faith-a-faith! Really though, even though it starts out with the whole touching-your-body thing, it shifts into a larger story about how he’s got to learn to love and trust again.
It’s a fun song to listen to — and to sing. I’m not a person for whom faith comes easily, so maybe it does me good to sing the word “faith” over and over for the chorus. The song is repetitive enough that you gather steam as you go along: anybody can feel like a singer by the end. Just be careful to watch the karaoke screen so that you can time the last part just right as there’s a pause before the final bit of lyrics.
By the way, I also highly recommend Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ “I Love Rock and Roll” as another easy-to-sing classic that will inspire people to sing along or, at the very least, clap their hands.
It’s hard to pick a favorite song in general, but the karaoke part made it a more manageable choice. A lot of my favorites from artists like Whitney Houston and Belinda Carlisle go too high for me to sing, except in the car when no one can hear.
Also, my favorite songs come and go, depending on my mood. Sometimes I’ll happen to hear an old favorite and remember how much I love it. Other times I’ll hear something new (well, new to me at least) and have it on repeat for a time.
One of the benefits of living in the digital age is the ease with which we can find and stream songs online — we don’t have to search out hard copies of our favorites anymore unless we choose to buy a record player and spend weekends tracking down vintage copies of what we love, with the beautiful album covers to remind us even more vividly of the artists that own space in our hearts and minds.
I wrote this story in response to the favorite song prompt for day seven of the Refresh the Soul 30-Day challenge.
