Ragged Clown

It's just a shadow you're seeing that he's chasing…


Jan
23
2007

The Great Car Singing Debate

Where do you stand on this most important of issues? Scott Adams is against it. Scott Adams thinks that

Car singers believe they have an unalienable right to sing along with the music even if it does make other people feel as if squirrel-banshees have crawled inside their skulls to eat the parts of their brains that control joy.

I think that car singing is one of the ways that we can proclaim loudly to the world that we are alive and life is good. In the words of Mellisa Ethelridge (IIRC),

ay aya aya heye ay aya hey hey

There is no finer moment in life than when you are in a car full of people and suddenly everyone knows the words to a somewhat obscure song and joins in with wild abandon.

Particular episodes that come to mind:

  • In the Ghetto with the Kendalls. I thought I was the only one in the world who still likes Elvis but it turned out that In the Ghetto was Harry’s favourite song – as it was mine when I was his age.
  • Jazz joining in with Cecilia – how did she know that? I haven’t played Simon and Garfunkel for years
  • Georgina knowing all the words to Paradise by the Dashboard light. All my life I dreamed of meeting a woman who would sing Paradise with me as a duet and it turned out that I had already married her! (We used to harmonize on Emotion (actually, she would harmonize, I just sang) but she won’t sing that one any more)
  • You were meant for me with assorted people from Alphablox that I barely knew on on the way to the pub from a company outing to Great America

… and my all time favourite…

  • Conducting the whole company to sing Bohemian Rhapsody on the bus on the way back from Monterey

[OK – the radio wasn’t even playing on the last one but it was marvellous]