I was just listening to Italian goth-metal titans Lacuna Coil and their powerful cover of the mighty Mode’s Enjoy the Silence. It’s a great version of one of my favourite songs, and at 3 minutes in, their lead singer Cristina Scabbia takes it to another level by starting a high vocal line that’s not in the original.
She’s only 5ft 3in tall but seems able to emit this soaring cry full of emotion without any effort at all.
Her voice reminded me, once again, of how much I wish I could sing. I discovered as a child that my singing voice is flat to an almost ludicrous extent, and I’ve never sung in front of anybody since then.
A family friend could, if given enough encouragement, reduce an audience to tears of joy by singing a cappella at a party or social event. He was an unprepossessing chap and had no interest in making money from his voice, but his solo renditions of old hymns or Danny Boy would leave people speechless. In the same vein, I’ve only got to hear Colm Wilkinson start singing Bring Him Home from Les Mis and I’m a wreck – every single time.
I dearly wish I could sing (in key) with enough skill to hold an audience spellbound or take them with me as I roar out my big hit at Glastonbury or similar. There is something about the human voice that can move people like no other instrument.
So, can you sing, and do you do it in front of others? And like me, do you have a moment of singing magic that makes you think “I wish I could do that”?
I won prizes as a wee lad – my rendition of Scots Wha Hae brought the house down at Aberdeen Music Hall. Then puberty arrived and my voice went from angelic to nae half bad. Was lead singer in the seminal rock group (fact check needed) Albert Fish – my rendition of Sunshine of Your Love brought the house down at Aberdeen Cowdray Hall.
Sixty years later I still sing virtually non- stop all the day long. Mrs W is a very patient woman but every so often snaps with a somewhat cruel “Shut The Fuck Up!” My speciality is singing the Wrong words to popular ditties, my current favourite is Iris de Ment’s ‘Our Town” –
“Hold on to your lover cos your lover’s bound to die”.
Best vocal ever? Michael Stipe on Crush With Eyeliner….
I am good in the bathroom
Yeah, but how’s your voice?
Terrible.
My dad had a lovely voice in the Welsh tradition, but not me. I must take after the English side of my family
I like singing and have always sung in bands. I’d say my voice is workmanlike – can belto rather than bel canto.
I can’t sing for toffee, but my air guitar is a sight to behold.
I used to sing in bands when I was younger, but can I sing? The short answer is no. My Lancastrian accent shines through & it’s just not good.
Get me in a shower though & I sing like Sam Cooke (at least in my head!)
I would love to be able to hold a note, but, to my shame, it is impossible. I could at one time, being a serviceable treble in the school choir. Given I so enjoy folk festivals, I always feel at a bit of a loose end as, say, @thecheshirecat, starts belting it out, without seeming effort, the sound of a jet plane in full and tuneful throttle. I sometimes mime the choruses.
Indeed. I am currently spending a week at Halsway Manor aka ‘The Folk Hogwarts’. Propping up a bar while belting out songs is utterly my natural environment. I do it whenever I can and that is often, especially in July and August.
“The Folk Hogwarts” sounds great.
Can’t and bucket, etc. When it was time to sing in music lessons, Sir would utter “Fenton – you play the keyboard”. I once had complaints from the paying public when I sang along from the lighting gallery to a production of Half A Sixpence. “Knees up Muvver Brahn”, etc.
Driving through Helmsdale the summer before last, I pointed up the hill and said to Mrs F, “Edwyn Collins has a studio up there.”
Mrs F: “Who?”
Me: “You know, Edwyn Collins. Orange Juice. {singing} Rip it up and start again… I’ve never seen a girl like you before…”
About 10 minutes further up the road she sang A Girl Like You to me.
Her: “Is that the one you meant?”
I’m in awe that you managed to avoid mentioning Barney in this thread. I was just listening to Tasty Fish by The Other Two, which I’d completely forgotten, and it made me think that New Order are a rare example of a band where the best singer hardly ever gets a go.
Have you ever heard the Weston Works tape? Immediately after Ian, er, left, the remaining three each have a go at signing. Yikes. Best of a bad lot, and all that.
Didn’t Hooky say he made his voice deliberatly worse (not that he professed it was any good to start with) so Barney got the job
As the saying goes, he would say that wouldn’t he.
He did sing the song he wrote on the first JD album, and a couple on the first NO album, so he can do it when he needs to. Up to a point, anyway.
For PH & The Light, he gets his son to play bass as he still can’t sing* and play at the same time.
(*) insert your own punchline
blimey that western works tape is a shocker. I mean, fair enough they were all at sea and all over the place. Didn’t Rob Gretton put himself forward at one point?
The last time I sang out loud was a few weeks ago after a reception where I had a few too many glasses of wine. Cycling back along a deserted Rhineside pathway late in the evening, I burst out with ‘To Love Somebody’. It was amazingly energizing, but I’m glad nobody heard me, not even me.
There are those on this site who can sing karaoke with the best of them. Not me – a total shrinking violet, but I will enjoy hearing them regale their memories. Impressive stuff.
I sing like a whelk.
Can’t sing. Won’t sing. I have a voice that is possibly dangerous to others sanity.
I used to be a good singer, sang in choirs and with friends all the time. Then I stopped singing in a choir, and lost touch with the friends I used to sing with, so I stopped exercising that muscle, and now I sound terrible if I ever try singing – the voice wobbles in all directions and I hit all the wrong notes, so I don’t ever try.
Only when I have a bad cold – then my voice is really good again, for some weird reason! Maybe it’s the phlegm and mucus stabilizing my vocal chords or something… 🙁
I’ve only ever sung one word in tune in my whole life. I think I was so shocked hat I’ve never been able to do it again. Marvellous mimer however.
I’m singing in public for the first time in my adult life this Saturday – part of a musical that runs for 7 performances. It’s Sondheim’s Into the Woods.
If you happen to be in the environs of North Auckland, why not come along?
https://nz.patronbase.com/_CentreStage/Productions/IW26/Performances
Good luck, BC! Break a leg, or whatever the equivalent is for singers.
Thank you! I am one of the younger members of the cast. During rehearsals yesterday, one of our major characters dozed off in the wings!
Like Lodes, I had a lovely boy soprano, which disappeared at 13 to be replaced by a low rasp. This was further damaged by my dissolute twenties. I sing a bit in my band but I am not lead singer material, having a narrow baritone range (my karaoke turn, if I must, is The Doors’ People Are Strange). Fortunately we have a great singer to stand behind and cede the spotlight to.
In another life, I’d have a keening tenor in the ballpark of Glen Tilbrook or Neil Finn. It was not to be.
Aha! This sounds like me! I’m not lead singer material, vocally or temperamentally, but I used to “sing” the Tom Waits/Nick Cave/gruff blues material in our covers band. And chuck in the lowest part when we did harmonies.
For a free choice at karaoke, I’d go for The Ship Song – or Some Velvet Morning/Jackson, if I had access to a suitable duet partner.
I could sing once, though never fancied myself as lead singer material. Was in the very posh Brisbane Chorale for several years. But that all went south with worsening COPD – fucked lungs and a permanently phlegmy throat are not a great asset for singing. When out busking my inimitable vocal stylings on Perfect Day and The Gambler go down well though.
I’ve done background vocals in bands, but I’ve never really enjoyed singing. It’s enough for me to be an instrumentalist. I’m somewhat decent at a few instruments and I love just making a sound.
I enjoyed singing as a boy and was in the primary school choir, a privilege limited to the eldest two years. I didn’t enjoy the time commitment to rehearsals though, and I remember a Christmas concert when we sang something called the Calypso Carol. As instructed we began to sway dramatically in vaguely approximate time to the music when we hit the first chorus. The congregation of parents started laughing, and I’m sure it was very cute but I had never felt such a twat in all my ten years of born days.
In assembly at the start of my last year the choir, including me, sat at the front of the hall. The teacher who performed the role of choirmistress said when the next auditions would he held for the year below us, and then turned to the choir. ‘And would anyone in the choir like to leave?’ I wasn’t a bold child and didn’t realise it was meant to be a rhetorical question. I put my hand up. ‘Um, yes?’ ‘I’d like to leave the choir, Mrs Darach.’ ‘Oh. Well, off you go back to your classroom.’ It was at the point she made her worst mistake. ‘Would anybody else …’ By the end of assembly there were only two choristers remaining.
I could sing once upon a time, not great but I could carry a tune as long as I wasn’t playing guitar at the same time. Around 10 years ago I got a persistent chest infection that lasted months characterised by persistent coughing. I had to sleep on the sofa for ages because my coughing kept my wife and babies (then) awake. After it finally cleared i found that I couldn’t sing my usual songs without extra breaths and found it hard to hold a note.
I still sing regularly, usually to annoy my children and the odd thing is that I can sing quite impressively in a showtune style e.g. Oh What a Beautiful Morning (from Oklahoma), without the breathing problem troubling me as it would singing in my own voice.
As mentioned on here many (many) times before, I sing a lot and do a ton of karaoke.
Will happily perform pretty much any song, and generally take the view that communal singing and dancing is a core part of the human experience, and that it shouldn’t matter whether you’re actually any good at it.
Current favourite karaoke tune is The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Has all the necessary ingredients; pathos, bombast, lots of different sections and a chorus people can join in on. I love it.
Good choice of song. In my experience, people doing karaoke usually do the done-to-death My Way or I Will Survive. The Power of Love would be a refreshing change (although Two Tribes is the best Frankie song).
Agree that TPOL sounds like a great karaoke song, but Two Tribes would be a challenge.
I’m okay, enthusiastic rather than cultured, and can carry a tune. People do occasionally ask me to carry it somewhere else, mind.
With singing you really have to know your material and practice it to see if it’s in your range.There’s nothing worse than someone starting out on some standard but forgetting that pesky difficult bit in the middle.
My wife has to be firm on karaoke nights otherwise I’d be up there for every song.
My 82-year-old father has a great voice – and I mean great. My slightly tone-deaf mother is the one in a choir, though, and they’re fab. Not technically brilliant, but the absolute joy of communal singing is there.
I have inherited a bit of my dad’s voice; as long as it’s in an Elvis-style key, I’m ok. My brother is completely tone-deaf.
I can’t sing for shit, but I have produced recordings for singers and I can tell them when they’re out of tune and write harmonies for them and stuff. I have to play the latter on a keyboard cos I can’t actually sing them!
Mrs M can sing (not professionally) – she can sing harmonies as can both my daughters. The latter both say they sing better with each other than with any other singers
I sing in the bass section of an African Gospel choir. A choir masks personal imperfections so I have no real idea if I am any good but I enjoy it immensely.
Referring to the song in the OP, another new version of it has popped up. And is easier to sing along with. Nouvelle Vague featuring Skye Edwards (Morcheeba) and Larry Love (Alabama 3):