I‘m going to start this post with some music which did not bore me at all.
On Saturday nights, our local public-radio station broadcasts a program originating in Chicago, called Midnight Special, whose slogan, per the program’s Web site, is “folk music with a sense of humor.” And the other night I just happened to catch a song called “Don’t Make Me Sing,” by an artist named Greg Greenway.
Now, Greenway — check his Web site — is a serious guy: not a “comic” performer, as a rule, although he obviously has a good sense of humor. But he’s been singing in small venues long enough to have seen a wide range of audience response… not all of it applause. “Don’t Make Me Sing” adopts the point of view of an audience member with things on his mind other than the person onstage.
I’ve transcribed the lyrics below the audio-player widget (please let me know of any mistakes); as you will see, this live performance comes with a certain amount of… well, let’s say it departs from what seem to be the “official” words. (In a performance captured via YouTube, Greenway manages to get through the song with somewhat less, er, distraction. Once he gets started, that is.)
Lyrics:
Don’t Make Me Sing
(by Greg Greenway)I ate at the bar
I surveyed the space
Two tables from the stage front
My favorite placeI was bursting with pride
I was flushed with success
I’d had to ask her out six times
Before she’d finally said…
…Okay.Then this guy started singing
It was a pretty good show
Then that telltale expression
Don’t even go there — oooh nooo…refrain 1:
Don’t make me sing
That’s why I paid to see you
It’s a show business trick,
Singer/Songwriter shtick
Why don’t you write something new?refrain 2:
Don’t make me sing
Don’t even act like I should
Give me a break, I’m on a first date
Why don’t you write something good?We gave it our best shot
We gave him a chance
Until he turned into Barney
In combat boots and black pants[refrain 1]
Everybody!
[refrain 2]
I gave into peer pressure
I sang with all that I’ve got
She used to be smiling
Now she’s checking her watch[refrain 1]
Don’t make me sing
They hit me up at the door
I did my job all day
Why should I have to pay
To help you do yours?Don’t make me sing
Why don’t you try something else?
If I had a good voice
I’d be up there myself[refrain 1]
[refrain 2]
I’ve been thinking about the song quite a bit since Saturday. Aside from enjoying the rhyme and melody (and of course laughing at the sense), I’ve also tried (and failed) to come up with analogy, for writers and readers, to the live singer/audience dynamic which Greenway depicts so wryly.
At first I tried to think of readings I’d attended — what do writers ask of their audiences on such occasions, which audiences might be unwilling to grant?
But the real analogy, I believe, isn’t in the live performance of a written work. It’s in the general unspoken contract between writer and reader. This is the contract which takes effect when you sit down in your favorite reading chair, open a new book, and begin to read.
What little gimmicks do writers rely on which drive you crazy, make you twitch, maybe make you wish you had picked up that other book instead? For example: cliffhanger chapter endings, maybe? gratuitous insertion of untranslated foreign words and phrases? picaresque plotlines? (Note: this is a question about writers in general, or writers in a particular genre, not about a specific writer’s tics and foibles.)
And if you’re a writer, have you — in horror, no doubt — ever found evidence in your own writing of something which drives you crazy in others’? If so, what (if anything!) did you do about it?
