By Katie Carlson

Singing and I have had a long, complicated relationship.

As a young girl, I loved to sing and I was good at it. I sang in the church choir, as well as school choirs and musicals, until a point in time came that I decided that it was no longer “cool” to participate in those activities. Still – in my car – I could belt out an Aretha Franklin or Etta James song like it was nobody’s business. I certainly couldn’t sing the songs with the same conviction as those ladies, but I’d hit all the right notes.

Once I turned 18 years old, I did the worst thing that a singer could do. I decided to show off my cool, slightly alternative, badass attitude by taking up smoking. And it wasn’t just a cigarette or two here or there, it was a pack a day habit – and eventually menthols. By the ripe age of 19, I recall attending church services with my parents, unable to hide my smoker’s cough, and I quit smoking shortly after. For a few years anyway…

As a young professional, I took smoking back up, and smoked anywhere from about ten a day, to a good year of smoking about two cigarettes a day, or as I would joke “just enough to keep the addiction alive”.

Finally, I was able to leave smoking behind. I didn’t quit, per se, because the moment that I say I can’t do something, it’s the first thing that I want to do, but I haven’t bought a pack in at least two years.

Still, all of those cigarettes over the years added up and did some damage to my voice. And though I cannot hit the high notes that I could when I was a girl, I still had my songs, my ever-expanding list of “go to” songs that I would sing at the top of my lungs. I’d nail every note, and felt confident that I knew all of the words, though it was hard to say for sure without turning volume all the way down, leaving me with no music at all. I would say to myself “I know this song well enough to sing it karaoke”, meanwhile also justifying that the music would gracefully guide me through the song, and that there were probably going to be back-up singers on the karaoke version.

Unfortunately, in the course of building my repertoire, a song or two made the “go to” list that had no business being on there. One of those songs was Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life”.

I may never really understand why I thought I could sing that song. It’s Stevie Wonder for goodness sake.

When I learned that my dear friend Shelli, whose campaign I had once managed, would be in town to attend a karaoke fundraiser for a local political candidate, I decided to attend. I thought back to the many long car trips that we had taken together, both singing our hearts out as a way to relieve stress. The high point of our musical magic, and really one of the high points of a very tough campaign, was our duet to Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life”, sung as we traveled back from Washington, D.C. to Indiana. We loved it. Our voices blended perfectly. And afterwards, we decided that once the campaign was over, we needed to go do karaoke and sing that song.

I went to the fundraiser with hope of finding “You Light Up My Life” on the list of songs. But it wasn’t there. Neither was “I Feel the Earth Move”, or “Something to Talk About”, or any Kacey Musgraves’ songs!  You know what happens next. My over-confidence and a couple beers got the best of me. I decided I would sing “For Once in My Life”.

I followed my friend Elise, who sang a sweet song by a 60s girl group and did a great job. She knew the song well. It was totally in her range. I danced and cheered on the sidelines as I prepared to take the stage.

When it was my turn, I got up, waited for the music to start, and immediately had no idea what key to sing the song in. I must have switched keys or entire octaves three or four times during the course of the three minute song. I knew I was failing hard in front of a room full of my political friends and peers. “Finally!” I thought, “The long musical break!”

So I did the only thing I knew to do, and started dancing around. I even got a few cheers and smiles from the crowd. But when I had to sing again, I knew I had failed the song so badly that Stevie Wonder himself would have been angry at my attempt. Does Stevie Wonder even get angry, I wondered? I was just dying for that song to be over. When it finally ended, I made a disparaging comment about myself into the microphone, something along the lines of “it sounded a lot better in my car”, and walked away embarrassed and in shame.

To my dear friends who told me that it was good, I shut them down immediately. I took the most comfort in my friend who said that the music was really loud, so you couldn’t really hear the vocals at all from the back. However, I have a feeling that the DJ may have made an adjustment, for which I was grateful. I really just wanted to exit the room, but due to the previously mentioned attitude, I stuck it out like I didn’t care. But my ego was near-mortally wounded.

Fast forward about a month and my neighbors are all gathering at the dingy, neighborhood watering hole for a pre-Thanksgiving chili cook-off and karaoke night. “I’m just being polite stopping by,” I told myself, “I’m being a good neighbor.” I had no intention of embarrassing myself again.

The DJ started off the night himself with a rendition of the country song “Rub It In” that gave me the creeps… He sang from behind the table with his equipment, “Rub it in, rub it in, I feel the tingle begin, you’re gettin’ under my skin, rub it in, rub it in.”

Even better, the equipment was set up in such a way that in order to see the words to the song, you must turn your back to the crowd.

Next up was a fellow who, when the DJ didn’t have Carole King’s “You Got a Friend” (or maybe the DJ did have the song, and the gentleman chose not to use it), he sang his own a capella version, on his own time, skipping around to the parts of the song he wanted to sing, singing them twice, and leaving out other verses entirely.

Another gentleman in the bar, who I can only assume is a regular, was very excited about the a capella Carole King song that his ears were feasting on, and joined the table of myself and a few neighbors. This man had an awkward smile, and leaned into everyone he was talking to, so as to press up against their shoulder. He never wanted to speak to me, but I watched him with interest as he moved around the room deciding who he would press up against next.

Over the night, the bar owner, a very sweet lady, and her friends, took turns singing classic country western songs, backing each other up on vocals and dancing as they each sang.

Another group of girls, closer to my age, came to the bar that evening for one reason, and one reason only, to sing karaoke. Like the older group of females, they each went up there with a great support system singing and dancing behind them. You could see how much fun they were having.

After a few more rounds of the DJ taking a turn for himself, and the man who sang sans karaoke machine, our neighbors started getting the confidence, one by one, to take a turn. That’s when I started to change my mind.

Once I knocked back one more beer, I marched up to the DJ, who didn’t a book of songs that you had to choose from, and asked, “Do you have ‘Mama’s Broken Heart’?”

“Yep. What’s your name?”

I said “Katie”, and walked away thinking “that was easy”.

A couple songs and sips of beer later, and he called me to the stage for my turn.

I took a deep breath. The music came on, the first lines to the song appeared, and I started singing. This time, I was nailing it. Well, maybe not completely, I stumbled once or twice, but I was feeling so confident with the song and the lyrics, that I even tried turning around to face the crowd and put on a show a time or two.

The man who sang a capella had the one seat in the entire bar that actually faced the singer, so from behind a bar top, and a sign leaning against a support beam, I could see him through a little triangle smiling and slapping his hand on the counter top.

This time, when it was over, I had a smile on my face. I’d had fun. The handful of neighbors that remained cheered on my performance, and the bar owner and I exchanged compliments.

After taking my seat, and watching the same folks perform on rotation, I declared that it was about time for me to leave. Then, one of two men who were sitting at a table behind me, neither of whom had said a word to me all night, said, “You’re leaving? We wanted to hear you sing again!”

“I have fans!” I thought to myself, “Well, I can’t disappoint my fans!”

Once again, I marched up to the DJ and said “Do you have ‘Me and Bobby McGee’?”

“Yep.”

“Are there a lot of people signed up to sing?”

“No. Not really.”

“Okay. Thanks!”

Once again, I walked back to my seat thinking, “two for two!”

I was next person they called up, as the DJ explained to the crowd that I was ready to get out of there.

This time, the younger girls, who must have been outside during my first song, were back, nearly doubling the crowd. This song, I knew I knew. I had been singing it – a capella even! – since I was a little girl around camp fires at the request of my cousins. They even had the song at the karaoke event where I totally flopped, but I didn’t want to sing it because it has kind of become a karaoke cliché. It’s always someone’s song, and that someone makes a really big deal about singing it. Well, on this night, I didn’t care about any of that, it was my song.

Knowing each note and word by heart, I was able to turn around and sing to the crowd. I danced during the musical breaks. I sang the crap out of that song. And the crowd of fifteen or so went wild. The younger girls I didn’t know were hooting and hollering along with the table of the remaining neighbors.

And while I was singing it, I felt the same way that I do when I sing that song or others to myself in my car: filled with joy and free to be exactly who I am, which is exactly how karaoke should be.