Still Alive

Without any advance prep other than hearing Mick twist his voice around it, without so much as a time or two doing it along with him, I took on Wild Horses for karaoke earlier this month. Oh well, that’s what karaoke’s good for, right? Besides, it turned out to be the one I was happiest with, even though I did an encore of one of my faves – Sixteen Tons – well enough for one of our people to say I now own that song here. Then since Diane took the night off to watch the NCAA Championship game on karaoke night, I sang one she owns – You’re So Vain – except that I switched the words around to be pointing it at myself, with half our audience not quite sure if I was just having fun or might just actually take myself that seriously. Plus I did harmony to Mike (who was celebrating his 72nd birthday) on Tom Dooley and ran the bass line to Elvira.

But although I’ll still putter around with some sing-along tunes and other fun stuff for karaoke as Bobby and I take the activity over for Norm through the summer months, I’ve agreed to sing a few songs for several of our community’s upcoming events —

• The Last Time I Saw Paris, a solo for a Singers’ concert at the end of May. Possibly with me doing a harmonica interlude. And they might impose on me to interject some words I made up for giving it a bit of different fun in the middle portion the second time through.
   
• And for the Space Odyssey special program that Ann is putting together for September, I’ll be doing the following menagerie (in addition to singing Spirit in the Sky and Age of Aquarius with the rest of the troupe) —
  • Three Little Fishies, in a trio with Ron and Jan. Jan wants me to choreograph some steps for us to do.
  • Somewhere Out There, in a duet with Polly, after SuziQ was unable to do it this time around.
  • Ghost Riders in the Sky, solo, practicing it so far a la Johnny Cash, perhaps will give Marty Robbins and the others a listen once I’m further along with it.
  • Highwayman, taking the song’s lead a la Willie Nelson (with Bobby, John and Walker filling the other 3 parts), and so far am having fun practicing it like Bob covering Willie.