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Letter to the editor

With songs this bad, just try not to sing along

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published July 6, 2004

So, I'm standing over the kitchen sink rinsing a glass and singing to myself:

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone.

Dah DAH dah dah DAH.

It's not unusual to have fun with anyone ...

"STOP IT," my wife pleads from the next room. She has no defense. In five minutes she'll be humming it too. This is, and I realize I am being presumptuous here, one of the few downsides of being married to me.

OOGAH chaka HOOGA HOOGA OOGAH chaka I can't stop this feeling, deep inside of me, girl you just don't realize, what you do to me.

It isn't entirely my fault. A button has gotten stuck and the Jukebox of My Life is frozen in the "play" position. It is eclectic and entertaining. For me, I mean.

What's my name, what's my name,

What's my (blanking-blanking) name,

Snoop Doggy Do-o-oogggg. . .

"I said, stop it!"

We're gonna boogie oogie oogie till we just can't boogie no more. Boogie no more. Boogie no more. Boogie no more.

Skyrockets in flight. Afternoon delight! Sky, eye eye eye eye eye, eye eye eye eye eye, afternoon delight!

Heading for the laundry room, I break into an air keyboard for the Safety Dance: Dah dah DAH, dah-dah dah-DAH! You can dance if you want to. Which segues nicely to an air guitar song: Roller COASTER! (dahdahdah, dahdahdah, dahdahdah ...) And as long as the guitar is out: Dang DANG, dang-a-dang-a-lang, take the last train to Clarksville ...

Some songs lend themselves to orchestral versions only, such as the Habanera from Carmen: Dah DAH dah dah, dah DAH dah dah ... And because I only know one line of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald ("Superior, it's said, never gives up her dead ...") I usually end up careening through that over-and-over melody line with hums. Hmm HMM HMM hmm-hmm, hmm hmmm HMM-HMM, hmm hmm ...

There is silence for a little while during laundry-folding. And then suddenly, startling the cat:

SCIENCE! (Boop boop BOOP). She's poetry in motion (beep boop beep). And now she's making loooooove to me ...

Followed by:

I got married to the girl next door. She's been married seven ... TIMES before.

And:

Oh, yes! I am wise, but it's wisdom born of pain ... I am strong (strong!) I am invincible (invincible!) I am WO-mannnn ...

A few minutes pass and I hear my wife's footsteps as she putters around the next room. Then I hear her voice, softly: "I am strong! I am invincible! I am ... STOP IT!!!!"

Oh Mandy, you gave and you gave without taking. Well I've never been to Spain ... I found her diary underneath a tree.

Each of us has a Worst Song of All Times, that which annoys us more than any other. And yet I am drawn to mine, irresistibly, and as loudly as possible:

Eye, eye-eye-eye-eye, eye-eye-eye-eye, will always luv YEWWWW-OOOO-UUUU-OOOOH-OOH-ooh, will always love you-HOOOOOOOOOO ...

Or maybe: If you like pina coladas ...

This one takes a fake-earnest voice:

Gypsies, TRAMPS and thieves,

That's what the people of the town,

they called us ...

But every night all the men would come around,

(Switch to a husky voice here)

And lay their money down.

More:

Just sit right down and we'll take a trip. Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight. Muskrat, muskrat. FEEEEEEEEEElings, oh WOH WOH FEEEEEEELings. Oh what a night, late December back in '63.

I get knocked DOWN, but I get up again. Love me, love me, SAY that you love me. We didn't start the fire. Last Christmas I had a fever and this got stuck in my brain for, like, four days while I lay in bed: Grandma got run over by a reindeer ...

I like mine with lettuce and tomato. Like a virgin (hooo!) touched by your hand for the very first time, like a vir-er-er-er-er-gin! Song. Sung. Blue, everybody knows one. Now if you break my heart, my achy breaky heart. I would walk five hundred miles. Smo-oh-ohke on the wah-ter, dum dum DUM, dum dum DUM-DUM. (Switch to falsetto voice.) Shannon ...

Like Dick Cheney, I feel better now.

[Last modified July 5, 2004, 23:26:10]