Just Can’t Get Enough

I am one of those despised people who takes karaoke too seriously. I used to keep a list of possible karaoke songs on my phone, just in case. To this day, I do karaoke alone at home or in my studio. Sometimes I do this because it’s the only thing that gets me out of a slump, other times because I just can’t help myself. Every time I make a new performance I have to make a concerted effort to stop myself from filling it with karaoke. On this I have failed on a few occasions.

For me it is an addiction, once I start I cannot stop. It’s like a plunge pool, binging on sugar or listening to guilty pleasures, just one more episode... I know I am not alone in this, I have witnessed the beast overtake many others throughout my years doing karaoke. In writing the follow- ing account of my early experience with this ritual, I realise that my experience of doing karaoke was probably what forged my ongoing obsession with singing. It is the epitome of a certain thrill that singing in front of an audience can give, all at once masochistic and empowering.

The first time I did karaoke (seriously) was at a pub called the Crossland’s in Glasgow, around 2007. I had recently been dumped and I was gutted about it. However, I was also steeped in that wild energy that often trails behind heartbreak. In other words, I was wide open to new experiences.

I was on the committee of the artist-led gallery Transmission in Glasgow at the time, and at one of our openings I had been chatting to another artist called George Ziffo. George was a shy painter, he had wafty fair hair and a small pencil moustache. I don’t remember how we got onto it but the topic of karaoke came up. I was surprised to discover that George was an avid fan and eager to find a bar where he could sing. I immediately piped up and said that I also very much wanted to go to karaoke.

George said he knew a place — Crossland’s — a bar in Maryhill made famous by its appearance in the film Trainspotting. If you remember the scene where Begbie throws a thick pint glass over his shoulder from the balcony of a pub and it smashes on a woman’s head, that was where George and I went to sing karaoke. George managed to gather a few others that were also keen to come along — all men, all relatively shy and dorky.

I don’t remember so many details about that first night other than the two songs that I sang. The first I did solo — Back on the Chain Gang by the Pretenders. It was a song that my dad used to play in the car when we were kids. Somehow it seemed to fit the implied criteria, just the right amount of nostalgic, intergenerational, soft rock with a feel good melody.

As is tradition with an amatuer karaoke performance I only realised half way through the song that it was very difficult to sing, I didn’t remember most of the verse and got completely stumped by the bridge. However, despite these misde- meanors I came off stage high. As I edged back into my seat at the table alongside my ill-fitting entourage, I buzzed and sipped on my pint with a ferocious glee in my eyes, my heart beating. I wanted to laugh hysterically and weep all at the same time. I was ripped open and elated.

I felt for the first time a strange and hard to describe sensation that has reeled me in many times in the years since. It’s something caught between embarrassment, pleasure, adrenaline, fear and power but perhaps most importantly, a sense of being part of a community. This “community” is complex — it is a force, a sense, an encounter that I don’t totally understand. It is not a fixed group of people. It swells and ebbs from song to song. It reaches out of the walls of the pub towards all of those other people who have sung the same songs in other rooms. It is earnest and supportive. This community often makes no sense on paper unless you understand it purely as a shared love of something that you produce together, for one another, completely outside of the regular confines of your daily lives.

After my initial revelation that karaoke was not as easy as it seemed, I sang the second song of the night as a duet with one of the boys from my table — a friendly musician with floppy hair and a wide smile. He suggested Just can’t get enough by Depeche Mode which although I wasn’t convinced I knew so well I got through with a lot more ease than the previous song. I was even bold enough to attempt a few harmonies on the chorus. It was a truly empowering feeling.

Most of us sang that first night. There was one of the group, I can’t remember who exactly, that only ever sang David Bowie songs. He used an imitation Bowie voice to sing that was both endearing and cringeworthy. Lucky, he could also hold a tune so somehow always managed to pull it off. Afterwards, our oddly shaped gang went dancing together. We danced until close, fuelled by euphoria from our night at Crossland’s. This first night together was tender, peculiar and revelatory. We were all hooked on the feeling.

After that first night we became a kind of gang with a hidden secret. We were bound together by a special power that the rest of the artists we hung out with wouldn’t suspect. We began to meet at Crossland’s every week for karaoke. Serious karaoke. We would select and practice our songs at home during the week, excited about discoveries that we knew would please the rest of the group. Occasionally new members would join, thankfully a few other women over the weeks, but in general our group remained small and dedicated.

We began to be known and even accepted by the other regulars at Crossland’s. There was one man who was there every week. I cannot remember his name but he always came alone and sat on the end of the bar, wearing the same full denim outfit every time. He was perhaps in his 60s or 70s but had the kind of face that could have aged early through alcohol consumption, he was usually visibly drunk. Every week without fail he would sing the same three songs — Little by Little by Oasis, Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs and Losing my Religion by REM. After some weeks we all began to greet him as we entered the bar, he would cheer for us as we would cheer for him. 

Our assimilation was not something to be taken for granted and we were gratified by our integration into this ritual. My experience of growing up in Glasgow was always imbued by class awareness, heightened by the fact that my father grew up in a working class Glaswegian family and my mother a middle class family in London. I was acutely aware of this dynamic in my daily encounters — from the clothes I wore to the way my accent would shape shift depending on the context. Our group could read as nothing but painfully middle class, there was no getting away from that. We all felt it the minute we walked into that bar on the first night, or at least I know we were all nervous. I’m not totally sure what of, I don’t believe any of us thought that Begbie would be waiting in there ready to smash a pint glass over our heads. I suppose we just knew that we would stick out and there was a good chance that our presence may not be welcomed. But over the weeks we integrated successfully. On reflection, I believe that was probably testament to our earnest and serious approach to karaoke. We were not there to laugh at anyone or put anyone down, we were just there to sing with the most heart and dedication that we could, like everyone else.

Some months later the word got out about our little karaoke club. A friend who was an artist and musician got excited and decided to have his birthday gathering at Crossland’s karaoke. I was hesitant but supportive. I felt protective of what we had built up there and was worried about how the other regulars that we had built rapport with would react to the bar being flooded with young artists. I remember it being awkward for us in the initiated group. Everyone at the birthday party had a great time and sang a lot, but there was a way they approached their song choices and styles of performance that felt somewhat inflected with irony. Although I would have very much enjoyed and indulged in this if we were doing karaoke together at a house party or in a booth, at Crossland’s it made me nervous. I feared that by association our small group’s place in this community would be threatened.

And in a way it was, as far as I remember this night marked the beginning of the end of our ritual together. I can’t totally remember why, perhaps our personal lives took over or it just faded out. But I also think that our place there shifted after that evening in a way that none of us could quite reconcile or put our finger on afterwards. This was not the end of my encounter with karaoke however, just the end of the start of a fervent new addiction.