Watch Out Boy, She'll Chew You Up

I'll leave the post-game analysis to the pundits. I'm told I was pretty bad, but not bad enough to take home Lord Ramsey's Cup two years running. Even though I was a little sad to hand it over, I'm OK with it. Really. I got beat by a very worthy adversary. I still hold my head high that I put in a performance that would make the trophy's namesake proud. I'm optimistic for the future; I'm told I'm a natural at this bad singing thing.

I'm equally proud of the setlist I scrawled on a piece of paper that I brought with me to the Rock-it-Grill. I decided to make a game-time decision on songs. The list I considered:

Maneater, Hall and Oates: I began thinking about this song around a debate on Jodi's blog (Maneater vs. Sara, Smile/Little Red Corvette vs. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man). And I really wanted to sing the line where one of them (Hall? Oates?) yells "woman is wild oooooh." But there's a long musical break in that song. And I do not enjoy being on stage with nothing left to do but construct awkward/ironic dance moves.

September Gurls, Big Star. I've said before that this is one of those songs that if you don't like, I don't like you. I've always wanted to sing this song, and I'm fairly certain I could mangle it. Especially on the "ooooo when she makes love to me" part. But I passed on it. Unlikely a townie karaoke bar is going to have this in their repertoire. Here's a cover by Susanna Hoffs. If you need proof of God, watch this:

I'm on Fire, Bruce Springsteen: I started to think about this song for KttD around Thanksgiving, when I sang it with one of Yo Han's brothers, who claimed he was intentionally experimenting with atonal vocals. I ran it by Hot Rod, whose first reaction was "too creepy," so I took a pass.

Poison, Bel Biv Devoe: I'd like to think I've got the balls to sing this in front of a hostile audience, but I don't.

Sick of Myself, Matthew Sweet: This is another one of those songs I love, but upon further reflection wouldn't make a good Karaoke to the Death selection. It's too sad-lovelorn-bastard to win.

So in the end, I settled on Jackson Browne's Somebody's Baby. Although I'm told by some that it was worse than my award-winning performance last year, I enjoyed every moment of being up there. Excelsior! as the kids say.