Everybody Sing

Sometimes I think I am the only one, until I hear a conversation I wasn’t included in voicing the same opinion. Karaoke car pool wasn’t the first to do the sing along thing. We all do it, more often than we realize while driving to work or traveling to a different destination down the freeway. If you look to your right or left determined by the lane you choose to drive, you will notice someone you don’t know listening to the same exact tune. Your lips are synced mouthing the same words to a song not more than two weeks ago, you didn’t like at all. Your choice of station doesn’t matter, I Heart Radio, Pandora your favorite local channel or some newfangled app you thought you set up uniquely. Which song is it this week? Which song are you trying to avoid but can’t get away from? It’s just like clockwork, every twenty to thirty minutes it sneaks into to your sound system. Every car with speakers louder than yours are blasting it. Each station you turn the dial to would make you believe they are watching your fingers. That song is on again and you’ve lost count how many times it has played this hour. I only started to notice the frequency because, it will be on when I get out of the car and on when I get back in. Making you wonder if it anticipated the moment of my return.

When I first started writing “Everybody Sing”, even I thought the whole idea was an over exaggeration. I then began paying close attention to see if my earlier findings were correct only to find, it was much worse than I originally believed. When you start to take notice and actually pay attention, one song plays more when you don’t wish to hear it. That’s drives you to the point you gradually begin to give in unknowingly. You will discover yourself mouthing the hook first, then the opening line. Next, you didn’t realize you knew all the words until you do the self-test. You know, the test to see if what you thought they were saying is really what they were saying. It never fails and to my amazement, they really did say those words in a song. In my mind, I scream - at the radio. What the what? More often than not I have to ask myself, did they let anyone else read it or recite the lyrics by someone else before they decided to record and place it in rotation? Did said person or people listen at all? Or were said persons on the yes team or please don’t? I know I am not the only one asking myself these questions, or am I?

Please tell me I am not alone, unconsciously mouthing words to a song just yesterday I couldn’t stand or comprehend its lyrics. I refuse to place any of the song lyrics here because it would be too hard to pick the winner of which two should be posted. I can’t help but laugh at the thought of me singing lyrics my mind takes off on its own to partake. It is a strange occurrence because my mouth doesn’t want to participate at all. If I could just make it stop. Find the strength in me to refuse, but even I openly conscious of these things happening can’t seem to break the habit. I’ve tried but can’t stop this mass sing along. Once, I heard a comedian with a guitar sing a song he knew no one in the audience knew but started his set with “everybody sing”. Not everybody laughed but to me it was hilarious. Through the whole performance, he would pause as if expecting the audience to know the lyrics. Everybody Sing is real. We are all involuntary members of an unnamed mass chorus, singing out of tune just like the out of tune singers we are mimicking. How long will we be force fed songs with background music we remember distinctly but the new lyrics attached makes no sense at all? As we continue to do this ride along on trains, buses, cabs, Ubers, Lyfts, carpooling and our very own cars with no one demanding we do it; singing to the top of our lungs, songs just yesterday we tried as hard as we could to avoid listening to? Everybody sing, everybody sing, everybody sing, everybody sing… all the while wishing we had the ability or the strength not to join in. Maybe we will never stop completely; but at least; yeah, at least we are wishing.