GO FORTH AND SING NO MORE

Jul 06, 2009 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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Gene Kelly, movie star, dancer, singer, and choreographer found “Singing In The Rain” both pleasurable and lucrative.  In my case, “singing” and “rain” are not simultaneous events.  My singing precedes the rain.  It might be that my genes are not Kelly’s, but when a song issues forth from my lips, even the Almighty shows his displeasure.

My teachers realised that while I was good in English and Arithmetic, singing was not my bag.  In fact, I could not, and still cannot, carry a tune in a paper bag or any other receptacle.  Fortunately, singing was a non-academic Elementary school requirement and as I sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” the rain outside and the dirty looks inside from my classmates and teachers alike made it clear that if they had their way I would be rowing my boat, the Hesperus, alone and adrift across the sands o’ Dee.

It was when we got to the more intricate variations that my abilities came to the fore.  The music teacher tried to get the class to do a version of “You take the high road, and I take the low road” where one group started ahead of the other.  I was in the second group and I was in Scotland afore everyone else.  While I trampled the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond the sleeping waters woke up in anger and alarm.

The one exception to the rule was calypso.  It is a known fact that anyone with half a voice and no ear for music can sing calypso and generally does.  Like my peers, I belted out the hits of the day, particularly those that could be used as weapons against my classmates.

“Mamma Look Ah Boo-Boo Dey” by Lord Melody was an assault rifle directed against my less comely comrades, while “I goin’ to bite them young ladies partner/ like a hotdog or hamburger” from the Spoiler was enough to titillate the young ladies of Standard Five, particularly the ending, “And if you thin don’t be in a fright/ Is only big, fat women I goin’ to bite.”

Even now, while generally reticent about subjecting my children and in my rare visits to Church, the congregation, to my vocal versatility, I do not hesitate to regale them with the rhymes and rhythms with which I grew up and which I still remember and bring out when the mood is on me.  Fortunately for all concerned and within earshot, that has become increasingly rare.

My uncle referred to my frequent forays into the calypso medium as “fast-talking”.  He and my other relatives did not think much of my Elvis imitations either and had a jailhouse been handy, I would probably have done my rocking there.  I did not try it on my friends because the only rock they knew was something that was thrown or hurled.

I tried country and western singing, which like calypso, does not require any musical skills and even tried to write a song but couldn’t find any clean word to rhyme with “truck”.  Rap music is very much like reciting poetry but it is not my thing.  I listened to it a few days ago as I tried to sleep.  I had no choice really, since it was coming from a car about a half-mile away from my house.

The deceased Michael Jackson had the right word for it.  When it comes to singing, I am no thriller.  I’m bad.

Secondary School was a challenge.  Brother Dominic, the choir master, heard me reading a poem in class and thought that my deep bass voice made me a natural for the choir.  I protested but to no avail.  It was not until I started singing the “Kyrie Eleison” that Brother Dominic got an attack of religion.  “Oh God!” he said and, consistent with the meaning of the song, the Lord had mercy on both of us as I demitted the choir to pursue activities of a sporting nature more suited to my temperament and vocal attributes, and he headed to his bed with a blinding headache.

There are other people like me who unfortunately are unaware of their limitations.  One singer asked the musical director, “Did you notice how my voice filled the hall?”  He replied, “I even noticed people leaving to make room for it.”

Sometimes motherly love can make women tone deaf.  A woman beamed at her young daughter who was auditioning for a part in “The Sound of Music”. Another mother nearby murmured at the rendition. The proud mother said, “She got her voice from me.”  The other mother replied, “You were very lucky to get rid of it.”

So far, mine has loyally stayed with me despite comments like, “Son, what happen?  What they do you for you to cry like that?” and “I hear about opera, and even soap opera, but when you singing in the bathroom is a soap uproar.”

The extreme reaction of family has made me wary of public criticism. Now, I generally avoid exhibiting my musical skills.  I especially eschew Karaoke and wisely so.  In the Phillipines, a man was killed and another injured in a fight that began when a group of drinkers complained that a singer was out of tune.

According to writer Melvin Durai, “Being out of tune in Manila is almost as bad as being out of beer.” In Malaysia , a man was stabbed to death by customers at a Malaysian karaoke bar for singing too much and refusing to share the microphone.

No fear of that for me.  I know my place in the musical constellation. The one regret I have is that even death would be agonising.  I figure if I can’t go out with a song on my lips, I will just croak.

*Tony Deyal was last seen talking about the man who went outside every time his wife started singing.  It was not that he didn’t like her singing, he just wanted the neighbours to know he was not beating her.

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