The whole “everybody get drunk and sing” thing is one of those things that I don’t think happens in the US anymore. Sure, there’s karaoke, but that is one guy singing. I’m talking about having the bar just all start singing Rocky Mountain High or something like that (speaking of which, I found that commercial!).
From what I understand, everybody getting together and getting drunk and singing is something that used to happen. Personally, I think we ought to bring it back. The problem comes that we don’t have an effective middlebrow culture where *EVERYBODY* knows the same songs anymore. Back when we had songs like “Don’t Sleep In The Subway” or “Abraham, Martin, and John“, everybody knew the words and you had the feeling that, if everybody was tipsy and in the same place, you could get everybody to start singing.
Anyway, I think the closest I got to that was in 1994 or 1995, the Philosophy Club met at the Old Chicago’s with the good jukebox and I usually plopped my five bucks in there for 25 songs and one of the last 5 was usually (okay, always) the next one… which usually got one of the other members to say something like “this song again?” and I would usually shrug but, one night, I was feeling feisty and vigorously explained “IT’S A GOOD FREAKIN’ SONG!” and, from across the bar, someone shouted “DAMN RIGHT!”
Which was awesome.
So… what are you listening to?
Alan Clarke is one of the greatest singers in the history of the world. There are only a handful of human beings in this world who can do justice to “He Ain’t Heavy,” and neither you nor I am one of them.
😉
It has something to do with the sacred and profane debate, Russell.
Ooops. Sorry for the mis-ID, JB.
As a professional singer and erstwhile vocal teacher, I have studied Alan Clarke and am in awe. No amateur—karaokeist— can do what he does except perhaps by brute imitation. It’s where talent, spirit, and knowledge all come together—“unthinkingness.”
Non cogito, ergo sum.
http://moreintelligentlife.com/node/4463
But this is not magical thinking, not ignorism. Not a reliance on a bolt from the blue.
As one fellow said [saw the quote today, famous artist, can’t remember who]—Learn your craft, it will not injure your art. Alan Clarke, great craftsman first, then great artist.
There are a handful of songs we’ve been blessed with that, while they may not be sung by the most talented singer, the act of simply *MEANING IT* can lift the song from just one that a guy who can’t sing is singing to a wonderful thing in itself.
“Danny Boy” is one of these songs.
I daresay “He Ain’t Heavy” is another.
I’monna tell you a story.
The matriarch has finally worked it so that my siblings (Megan, Tom, myself, and Ann), both parents (Maureen and Jimmy), and I are on our way up into the Sierra Nevadas to join up with her younger sister Jean, my uncle Jerry, and their daughters to go camping on a hundred acres that my great aunt Bea (God rest her recently departed soul) owned. Joining us, in a sense, will be aforementioned great aunt and her husband Bill, who live in a house on the property, and assorted cousins of my mother who may drop in from time to time as they live local. We have California hippie hillbillies in the family.
So we get up there, and there are the attendant stories I might tell some day about setting up tents and the hilarity that ensues thereof, bathroom adventures in the wild and whatnot, and on the third or fourth night the adults are well and truly deeply lubricated and the large camp dinner has been et and the fire is going and the cousins are huddled around makin’ ‘smores or toasting marshmallows or doin’ whatever it is we did and Bea and Bill saunter over the three hundred yards or so from the house to sit a spell and catch up on the adult lubrication bit that’s goin’ on.
Now a quick note about Bill. Bill’s like five foot two and has the face of Burl Ives crossed with John Rhys-Davies and an old boot. He’s an ornery old cuss who always scared the crap out of the younger kids back when we all went to their previous home in Oakland for third Christmas. Bill eventually died of cirrhosis of the liver on account o’ he was a well-practiced hand at picklin’ his innards.
So Bill is sittin’ there and my mother gets it into her head that it’s time to sing campfire songs and this results in her firing up this song right here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIYDtqM9Vq4
… and all the kids join in (as ’twas our tradition) and Jimmy (who can’t stand that song) starts moanin’ about, “Jesus Maureen not that damn song” and Uncle Jerry and Jimmy start commiseratin’ about how the women don’t listen and Jean and Bea are both laughin’ and Bill… in a quiet way that exudes curmudgeon from every damn pore… gets up and starts walkin’ off to the house. Keep in mind, five foot two and moves with all the speed of a turtle.
Mom and the kids chorus gets done with the Logger Lover, and there’s about a five minute break in the action whilst we all re-arm up the sticks with fresh marshmallows. I suppose at this moment the sheer volume of whiskey imbibed prior engages the old Irishman (barely) buried under the surface of my father’s demeanor – okay, not buried at all in any sense of the word – and he rises majestically to his feet and with the always startling clear baritone of his he announces that this here is a song to be sung by Almighty and he breaks into this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmQXmqbZ3Pc
Irene… good night, Irene
Irene, good night
Good night Irene, Good night Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams
Last Saturday night I got married
Me and my wife settled down
Now me and my wife have parted
I’m gonna take a little stroll downtown
He gets that far, and he pauses for a moment to have hisself’ a bolt of continuation, and off in the dark, from over in the direction of the house, we hear clearly old uncle Bill bust out in song in a manner I never heard before, and never heard from then to his death…
Irene… good night, Irene
Irene, good night
Good night Irene Good night Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams
And then Dad and Bill duet the next stanza:
Some times I live in the country
Some times I live in town
Some times I take a great notion
TO JUMP IN THE RIVER AND DROWN!
Irene… good night, Irene
Irene, good night
Good night Irene Good night Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams
Ending with strong emphasis. Dad roars out with Homeric volume…
GOOD NIGHT AND GOD BLESS YOU, SIR!
A singular memory.
That’s wonderful.
I’m listening to Kimbra’s album, Vows.
In Irish-diaspora bars, they still break into song. Also piano bars, but since piano bars are sort of built around the idea of people breaking into song, I’m not sure they count.
My impression is that Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” is your best bet here. At weddings, when the band/DJ plays that, the whole place tends to go completely nuts.
I think that there is very much a “Glee” connection there.
(Why, oh why couldn’t they have done “More Than A Feeling” instead?)
It’s not unusual for the crowd at AT&T to since “When the Lights Go Down in the City” together.
I’ve been listening, entirely coincidentally, to Petula Clark. I hadn’t realized that “Don’t Sleep in the Subway” was ever particularly popular in the US, but apparently it hit #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Doesn’t really seem like much of a singalong song, though. Was that really a thing?
It’s hard to pick a favorite, with all the great songs Tony Hatch wrote for her, but “Who Am I?” is on my shortlist.
*I* always sing along to it. It’s such a silly, happy song.
She can sing whatever she likes so long as she keeps her paws off Harry Belafonte.