November 8, 2007

• I did karaoke last night at Yesterday's. There was no ballroom class today because they're thinking of moving it to Thursdays to take advantage of a larger space. Anyhow, I went home for the time before karaoke, meant to go ahead and get some exercise, paticularly given that I may not be able to fall back on Jujutsu as one of my daily exercises, but I got distracted and finished up Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich again. I had a game that was stopped a few stages before the end and I went ahead and finished it up. It is still an excellent game, albeit one where I still tend to win my battles by taking advantages of loopholes in the rules rather than winning by good tactics. *grumble* And I'm still a bit annoyed that they dumbed down the power system for the sequel.

  Anyhow, I went to karaoke and I had a pretty good time. It was a short singer lineup tonight, a combination of regular singers being absent, regular singers not feeling well enough to sing, and a distinct lack of new people stepping in. I opened with "Hurt" as done by Johnny Cash, then did "I'll Wait for You" and "Molly Malone" (the latter was a gamble since I don't thnk I've ever heard the sing all the way through, having had it crooned at it a few times as a child) followed by Cat Stevens's "Morning has Broken" (which was done surprisingly straight. There were no key changes or odd timings, just laid out exactly like it is in the hymn books). It was before that song that the fellow at my table (lately, it seems like I have some guy sit at my table each night and buy me a few drinks without me requesting it and I feel obliged to set down my book and converse. I half expected this behavior when I sang at Holiday, but not here...) commented on how the songs chosen tonight were somewhat depressing ones. I pointed out that most of the songs done by others weren't (other than an exception I mean to point out near the bottom of my entry) but acknowledged that my first three songs had indeed been about the death of someone you love (well, "Hurt" can be interpretted in different ways. I personally always heard it as Johnny Cash singing about lost opportunities and the feeling of having accomplished nothing at the end of your life, although I always feel like he was singing the chorus lines staight out to June, his deceased wife). Luckily, Cat Stevens's song broke me out of that, followed by "Angel of the Morning", "A Horse with No Name", "I Walk the Line", and "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk". When I started singing at Yesterday's, I resolved to only sing one song a night that I'd sung there before, aside from requests, simply because I feel like there are so many songs available and most people doing karaoke only wind up doing a small subset that's in their "repertoire". And, at this point, my repertoire of songs I know I've done well is large enough that I wouldn't get through them in a month if I just sang them. Meh, anyhow, my intent was originally to journal about one specific song I heard tonight, "I May Hate Myself In The Morning", excerpted below:

  ---

  Ain't it just like one of us to pick up the phone and call after a couple of drinks,
  And say: "How you been? I been wonderin' that maybe you've been thinkin' 'bout me."
  And somewhere in the conversation, an old familiar invitation always arrives,
  An' I may hate myself in the morning, but I'm gonna love you tonight.

  Everyone's known someone that they just can't help but want;
  And even though we just can't make it work out, well the want-to lingers on.
  So once again we wind up in each other's arms, pretending that it's right,
  An' I may hate myself in the morning, but I'm gonna love you tonight.

  I know it's wrong, but it ain't easy moving on.
  So why can't two friends remember the good times once again?

  Tomorrow when I wake up, I'll be feeling a little guilty, an' a little sad,
  Thinkin' how it used to be before everything went bad.
  An' I guess that's what it is, in lonely late night calls like this, that we try to find;
  An' I may hate myself in the morning, but I'm gonna love you tonight.

  I may hate myself in the morning, but I'm gonna love you tonight.

  ---

  In many ways, it's a standard song of love and loss, the idea that there are people in this world whom you love, but can never be with (which was basically what I thought "He Stopped Loving Her Today" was at one point, as people who've kept up with my blog would know). It can be heartrending because everything feels so right about being with them, except that you know that it won't work out longterm, that there's something or multiple somethings that just won't reconcile. You can even make the mistake of making things permanent, thinking that it will all work out in the end, that "love will find a way". And, well, it just doesn't work. Some differences really are irreconcilable.

  On a side note, I had something funny occur to me today. The last few days, I've been reading The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. I found out today that I've somehow skipped a section of about 60 pages (my bookmark must have migrated...). I'd assumed that the references I was missing were the result of good storytelling technique, not belaboring us with backstory and having us learn of the world through the characters, but it looks like a good bit of that is indeed explained in the pages I missed. ^_^ Silly Sean...

  • 12:27 pm
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