Come on...Let It Out
For the amateur singer and nearly-professional Sting fan, “Fortress Around Your Heart” is best covered in the shower. The steam helps you hit that ping-pong range of notes in the refrain, and you can lather-rinse-repeat through the verses without making your voice sound too trembly. This same song belted out in the cab of your farm truck as you drive over the corrugated pavement of a small town road construction project at 38mph is disastrous, and you’re mighty grateful to be by yourself (Patrick slept in Saturday morning while I delivered granola orders to the drive-through pick-up farmer’s market an hour from home). Not even your patient husband of 28 years should be subjected to that.
I can sing fairly well most days, and I do have a couple of favorites that land right in that sweet spot of my vocal range. Pretty much anything by Billy Joel, most of Sting’s work, and “It’s Quiet Uptown” from Hamilton. Streisand’s stuff is just far enough over the alto line to make me lightheaded when I’m top-lunging it in the kitchen baking a batch of scones, and to nail it, I need to put down the measuring cups and stop stirring, stand completely still, and close my eyes for the final ascent. Don’t worry, Ms. Barbara—I plan to keep my day job.
It was Mom who introduced us to the wonders of song, playing the piano for us at home (and the organ at church), sitting us down to watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or The King and I, back when television boasted three major networks and you planned your dinner around these two-hour film events. It didn’t take long for my siblings and I to catch her enthusiasm, and there we’d be, pajama-clad and on the sofa, holding repurposed margarine bowls filled with hot buttered popcorn and watching Curly ride his horse, Blue, past the cattle grazing beneath that bright golden haze on the meadow (c’mon…you’re humming those first few opening bars right now, aren’t you?). For as much time as we spent in the company of their greatest works, Rodgers & Hammerstein might well have been related to us. They certainly rode shotgun on those long family car trips to Michigan every summer when Mom could tell we were getting antsy. A few choruses of “Poor Jud is Dead” (Dad’s favorite from that musical) soon had us laughing and sending requests for other show tunes forward to her place in the front passenger seat. I was usually the one to get carsick, but a little music took my mind off it, at least for a little while.
But there’s something about being by ourselves that nudges us into a self-made spotlight (hairbrush or soup ladle-microphone optional) where we knock down the last bricks of shyness, step forward and give our imaginary audiences the performance they paid for, complete with facial grimaces when we hit those notes way above our heads, or emphasize the heartache of that final lyric. If there’s room, we throw our arms open wide for the big finish and relish that split-second of silence before the crowd roars to its feet in adoration.
Ok, maybe it’s just me who does this.
Out here where we live, in the middle of what most would call “nowhere”, it’s not just easy to fill the space with song when you’re alone, it’s practically compulsory. I’ve definitely re-enacted the Knox County version of The Sound of Music (without Salzburg in the background, but then, no billboards in sight either) as I’ve walked the length of the meadow, coming out the other side breathless and not looking anything like a young and optimistic novitiate, but feeling happy. Filmed in the presence of livestock, or against the backdrop of a crisp mountain range, these songs were meant for a much broader audience, one with feathers and hooves instead of paychecks and sneakers. On my own, with no one around, I’ve tried to move like the dancers in Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” video, where they bend at the waist, pumping one shoulder toward the floor a couple of times before standing upright again in a perfect-rhythm side-step. And I really can rap the entire first act of Hamilton, all parts, with gestures and the occasional New York accent. But I have no plans to put any of that in front of the panel of judges at our local “[small town name here] Idol” contest at the county fair this year. Or any year.
These stripped-down moments of solitary confidence are for an audience we can’t see, with no critic for miles around (if we’re willing to just let ourselves be unbridled for a few moments without the sharp tongue of our own judgment). It’s deliciously indulgent and freeing, especially now. I don’t know how you’re coping with some of the isolation and solitude you’ve been experiencing since mid-March, but I would hope for a little letting-down-of-the-guard, if you will, and a bit of self-discovery that makes you glad for your gifts rather than resigned to your limitations. When we’re alone for longer than an hour, and silent for longer than three minutes, perhaps we learn that we’re not such tedious company after all. We’re smart. And funny. And clever. And our opinion is really the only one that matters. And we can nail that high note even better than Barbara.
Well now…let’s not get cocky.
