MEMORIES OF THE SUMMER WHEN: I. WAS. A. KARAOKE. CHAMPION. (NOT. KIDDING.)

By JOHN YOUNGREN

Watching “Don’t Forget The Lyrics!” on Fox Thursday night, I couldn’t help but remember the summer that – despite the fact that I can’t hold a note and am utterly tone deaf – I was a Karaoke champion.

If you know me, or – especially – if you’ve ever heard me (try to) sing, that last sentence will have particular impact: I. Was. A. Karaoke. Champion.

The Fox show, like its very similar cousin, “The Singing Bee” on NBC, is based on contestants singing along with popular songs, Karaoke-style, with the lyrics on the screen. Suddenly, a minute or so into the tune, the lyrics don’t quite appear – and it’s left to the contestant to fill in the proper words.

It’s harder than it sounds, especially if you’re only vaguely familiar with a song and it’s a verse or two in. Everyone knows choruses. Everyone knows “Lucy in the sky … with diamonds.” How many people know, “Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine seas and marmalade skies….”?

No one cares that much about how well the contestants are actually singing – it’s pretty much beside the point, except for the fun factor of watching people squawk along, out of tune, and dance awkwardly while peering at a big screen full of words to sing along with before they don’t know what’s coming next.

Which is where it comes back to me.

It was the summer of 1992. I think. I was playing softball for the Harris & Love Advertising softball team. We played every Thursday night in an ad agency softball league. We mostly always lost. But after nearly every game (which was generally when we had the most fun), we went to a Salt Lake City club with an outdoor patio called Green Street (original location at Trolley Square). And you know what they did every Thursday night on the deck, sports fans?

Karaoke.

Or at least, some of us did. I started by accident. I had no problem heading toward the microphone and standing in front of a bunch of people singing out of tune, believe me. My problem, the first few times, was that I tried to sing songs I loved and would somewhat sing seriously, including Beatles numbers like “Yesterday” and “You Can’t Do That.”

And I shouldn’t have done that.

But then one night I stumbled upon a secret formula: I went up front with my softball T-shirt and New York Yankees cap and chose a song I could ham it up to. The first test case was Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana.” Yes, the song about Lola and Tony and the fact that she was a showgirl and wore yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there. (You know where. Don’t start trouble.)

Something clicked. I knew the song, for one, having grown up singing along to Barry Manilow (don’t ask – it was late grade school and I gotten beaten up a lot). So, though I couldn’t sing, I knew how to emote my way through the song. I knew how to bring the drama and do the dance (and I did do a dance, during the instrumental breaks). And, maybe best of all, I knew enough to take a tropical drink from someone else and stick a miniature umbrella or two through the vent holes in my baseball cap, to give me the proper tropical look.

And that’s where I began to gain traction.

It went over well, but that one song wouldn’t have done it. It might have made me a “Copacabana” contender, but certainly never a Karaoke champion. No, in my mind, the key was the second song I chose that summer – the tune that seemed to just fit with “Copacabana” and its cheese factor, plus gave me the ability to emote no matter how bad a singer I was:

“If you like Pina Coladas
And getting caught in the rain
And you’re not into health food
And you have half a brain
If you like makin’ love at midnight
In the cold and the rain
I’m the lady you looked for
Write to me and escape….”

I’ll double-check these lyrics, but I can basically still remember them to this day (meaning Wayne Brady would probably give me about $350,000 on “Don’t Forget The Lyrics!”). It’s “Escape,” better known as “The Pina Colada Song” by 1970s singing icon Rupert Holmes.

He was essentially a one-hit wonder and this song is, to this day, a guilty pleasure. It wasn’t a particular favorite of mine even during the Manilow years. Still, it was such a goddamn memorable song that it etched itself on my brain, which came in handy 15 years or so later.

I would normally alternate the tunes, and do both on that summer deck at Green Street. There was a couple of times when – seriously – our game went long, or we were too slow in getting to Green Street after softball and the hostess (and I can still see her in my mind; she was fun and she could sing and she would often get me back on tune if I drifted for whatever reason) would be looking for “John” and I would come bouncing up the stairs, much to her relief and much to the joy (or so I imagined) of the Karaoke crowd looking for a few of the summer favorite performers that year.

Usually, I would do “Copacabana” first. It was a relatively popular Karaoke song and I didn’t want to lose it to someone else. The key move to “Copacabana” was when I would call out, “And now we dance!” during the song’s major instrumental break, when Barry & Co. sing “Copa ….. Copacabana…” and kind of make it a disco song. I would jump around in my cap and K-Swiss, holding a Bud Light in one hand. This usually got a laugh, especially in the relatively dark of the outdoor deck. (I always sang with a beer in one hand and the microphone in the other, furthering my reputation as an everyman. Later, friends recommended I bite into a lemon prior to singing, to soothe my throat. I took their advice, which wasn’t so much “everyman,” but was a strategic secret.)

I was often a favorite for the comedic aspect of my approach, at least that long summer at Green Street. I couldn’t really sing. But I could make people laugh, and they normally did, unless it was a particularly serious evening on the Karaoke deck and someone was really into Willie Nelson, or someone. (And people were very serious, at times. I can still remember guys with dress boots and Member’s Only jackets earnestly crooning whatever tune they did, something like “Suspicious Minds.” No room for laughs.)

As I recall, “Escape” would be the second song in my arsenal. It would generally come up 10-15 songs after we arrived and set up camp, meaning by this time my softball teammates and I would have not only established a presence on the deck but we would have pretty much taken it over, which was crucial. People would be coming and going after the game, but having a built-in rooting section was a big key to Karaoke. And by an hour or two after the game, we would all be properly lubricated – meaning I’d be counting 8 or 10 or 14 Bud Lights by that point and just ready to go when it came to Rupert Holmes.

And, much like Manilow, I could sell “Escape.” It wasn’t that magical. I didn’t suddenly get blessed with perfect pitch or the ability to work a note. But I knew the song, and I knew its story, and there was one line I growled – bigger and better than anything else, yelled rather than sung, spoken rather than crooned…

“If you like makin’ love at midnight….”

I can still hear it now. I would yell.

And that always got the laugh and the hoot. It was that simple. I was playing with people by that point. People would sing along. Couples would nudge each other. Everyone pretty much knew I got so little action that they would laugh and smile at one another and then glance at me, the way you might a sad animal in a zoo.

People I knew would report hearing me sing from all over Trolley Square. My sister and her husband Craig, at that point just dating, could hear me “singing” from the outdoor deck at what was then known as The Pub (now Desert Edge Brewery) at Trolley.

But you know what? Fuck it. I did it. I was so hot that summer I could do no wrong. And that’s why, late that year – summer leading into fall, the end of the softball season on the docket – I think I finally captured the title. I had my posse with me and I basically outlasted everyone else. Weekly wins were awarded based on audience applause. One Thursday night, I had more fans there than anyone else. We got to the end of the evening and they asked the crowd to vote by clapping. I came up after my two songs and they went nuts. Or at least that’s how I remember it.

Either way, I walked home that night with a free Green Street T-shirt and a $25 Green Street gift certificate (which I believe we used the next week to help pay for our tab).

I’ve long since outgrown the T-shirt.

I’ve long since redeemed the certificate.

Green Street has changed locations, and they no longer do Karaoke on that particular outdoor deck.

Harris & Love no longer exists.

That softball team has long since broken up.

I don’t do the Karaoke much anymore.

I’ve tried it since and never had that much success.

“Copacabana” and “Escape” (The Pina Colada Song) always bring back memories.

Of the summer. That summer. 1992. Or was it 1991?

It doesn’t matter.

I was a fucking Karaoke champion.

Really. Really.


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ON THE DOT: Now back in business (with a modified rating system) the “John Youngren Dot Com” blog (once known as “Pop Stew”) should be updated regularly. And remember, as always, this is just an exhibition; it is not a competition – so please, no wagering. To contact John, e-mail johnyoungren@mac.com