Singalong

         I can get really annoyed when people sing along to music.  This issue comes up in the store where I work: I’m trapped there, subjected to people’s musical stylings, with the retail-worker smile stuck on my face. 

When people sing along out loud who do not have good singing voices, of course that’s annoying.  But in my experience people who aren’t great singers do not force it on you; if they do sing aloud they keep it on the quiet side, at least.  The ones who really drive me crazy are the sing-alongers who have excellent voices and know it and think we all enjoy hearing them.  They do not keep it to themselves.  But just because they have good voices and perfect pitch does not necessarily mean the world wants to hear them.

“Let It Be” was playing in the store the other day and this customer was harmonizing loudly in her trained-soprano-sounding voice and it was driving me crazy.  I kept thinking, “This song is overplayed, old hat to all of us, but still, how do you know I’m not enjoying Paul singing it?  Maybe I want to hear him not you.”  I find it rude, like speaking loudly during a movie.  Can’t we all be allowed to experience life for ourselves?  Maybe I’m singing songs in my own head and yours are interrupting mine.  Maybe it’s rude and insensitive of you to assume I’m not . . .

Perhaps, yes, I’m a selfish curmudgeonly snob, inpatient and inflexible. I’m aware of this possibility.  But for these sing-alongers, it’s undeniably oblivious at the least to clog the air space and assume nobody minds.  Just because no one says anything does not mean they’re enjoying it.