Sing Singing

As a kid, I never entertained the idea of being a singer. While I did belt out the hits of Paula Abdul and Mariah Carey along with every other pre-teen girl in the early 90s, I did so in the privacy of my bedroom, my shower, or in the car with my mom (much to her chagrin) and would never have dared to showcase my vocal un-talents to anyone other than a few lucky family members and close friends. Having taken piano lessons for years, I wasn’t completely tone deaf, but singing certainly wasn’t my forte, a fact of which I was and still am well aware, and the thought of singing in front of just about anyone makes me extremely self-conscious. Yet somehow I found myself singing in front of a crowd (albeit a small one) on Saturday night and actually enjoying it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the wonder of karaoke.

In honor of Lauren’s birthday, a group of about 15 of us enjoyed pitchers of margaritas and freshly-made guacamole at Canyon Road before hopping into cabs and heading down to the East Village for an evening of karaoke-ing at Sing Sing. We checked in at the front desk, which required squeezing through the tiny bar area where a slew of slightly inebriated patrons were singing along to whatever song lyrics were scrolling above the bar as the bartenders passed around a microphone, and were then escorted to a private room downstairs.

With leather couches surrounding a large flat-screen TV, Sing Sing’s party rooms are the mainstay of their business. Able to accommodate groups of up to 15 or 20, they can be reserved by the hour and offer full service by a waiter or waitress and, most importantly, access to Sing Sing’s bank of thousands and thousands of karaoke songs – complete with scrolling lyrics and extremely cheesy videos.

Though the sheer number of songs available made choosing the 20 or so that would fill our two-hour time limit quite a challenge, we all managed to make at least one or two selections, and everyone who wanted to sing was given the opportunity. Drifting from our room at various points in the evening were karaoke staples like “Livin’ on a Prayer”, “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “Here I Go Again”, and “Sweet Child o’Mine”; 80s classics such as “I Need a Hero” (yes, I sang that one, and I realized a few seconds in that the only part of the song I knew was the refrain), Pat Benatar’s “We Belong”, and Jefferson Starship’s “We Built This City”; plus the more mellow sounds of Norah Jones (a.k.a our friend Caroline), a memorable “Midnight Train to Georgia” duet, and a hilarious rendition of “My Favorite Things”.

As is usually the case with karaoke, some members of our group were much more vocally capable than others. Yet we all sang, we all had a blast, and somehow we all sounded great (or at least thought we did) – even when we didn’t know the words.