Not like that. Too sharp. Too flat. Too pitchy. Too loud. Too quiet. You sound like a grieving horse. A shot sparrow. A misfiring car. Just fucking stop, ok? You make the birds sick. You make Jeremy Irons cry. Children don't want to follow their dreams. Man will cease to procreate. You killed the world.
Broadly speaking, singing holds a special place in human society. It's social, a ritual, a way of reaching God, a comfort, an accent to grief, communication; its functions too broad and bountiful to name comfortably here.
Within the popular or common idiom, it is a representative device used to 'humanise' the song. As 'lyrical' and 'poetic' as instrumental music can be, sane and rational people prefer music with vocals because they can imitate a specific strategy of the music themselves without any specialist training (unless you're some kind of twat who takes a guitar to a gig).
Turn on your TV. People, on shows like X Factor and the musical casting shows are constantly being told that they can't sing. And when people are being told they can sing, they're being told by people who couldn't possibly understand what good singing is and where it comes from.
I blame Stevie Wonder and his melismatic ways. Melismatic singing is that where a syllable is sung as more than one note. This accounts for the 'oooouuuuuewwooooaaoaooaooaoooh' over-enunciating from pretty much every singer since 1966. That said, Stevie's songs were complex and demanded such endeavours. 'She's The One' by Robbie Williams does not.
The voice, even when acting in a representative medium such as song, is capable of sleights of emotion so jarring that the lump in your throat feels like you swallowed a housebrick whole. It can catch you in your most extreme mindsets - of joy and pain - like a mirror and show you back in the most naked state; vulnerable and inexorably human. It's more than simply 'recognising yourself' in song. It's how at once we can elevate ourselves to be more than we've been and yet be isolated, adrift, aware of how futile it can all be. And yet still understand that things matter; that you matter - that this, whatever 'this' is, matters.* Ahem.
Take this example. The second chorus. Two simple words: 'forgive me'. It's one of very few times I have heard an enunciation of a lyric which equates to the sentiment it expresses in reality (ie. not in song).
Think about it. Let's examine some lyrics while you do.
Take a look around
At what technology has found
Is it what we need?
Or are we killing the seed?
Dictated by the screen
No more following your dreams
The world's become a difficult place to be
Fuck. This dude is angry, frustrated, confused. He might even be right. Technology man, all these wasted words and instant communications - but at what cost? The media does act dictatorially; its influence upon the behaviours and motives of individuals and groups is as proveable as almost any cause and effect in science, from race riots to eating disorders. The human voice has ways of expressing the layers of hurt, anger, sadness and nihilism inherent in this lyric. Who is this sage?
Extreme example. Or is it?
Bad singing is not an inability to hit notes in a timely fashion. The Shaggs couldn't do either and yet their songs retain a magical quality.
Bad singing is an inability to analogue appropriate sentiment and real emotion in the vocal medium. Every word in this sentence is a link to examples of bad singing.
It's true that I have a suspicion of professional singers. I've been told that I can't sing by my own parents: I was born with a cleft palete, so that may have had something to do with it - I am lucky to be understood even when simply speaking. I later went on to front a couple of bands anyway. As long as the conviction was there, what did it matter? Professionality has so many negative connotations bound up in; mercenary, slick. What can they care about content? It's also true that I adore unconventional singers such as Mark E. Smith, Damo Suzuki and Marion Coutts.
The point is that you can sing, even if you've been told that you can't - or that you have been told you can but you've been doing it wrong all your life - hitting those notes, coming in at the right time and always looking presentable. You just have to be there, understanding exactly what the fuck you are going on about, and showing it back to us: no matter how fragile and small or bellicose and triumphant that is.
You don't even have to look good doing it or even look comfortable.
*smug preening wankers who laugh their sickly laugh and say 'why don't you study something useful?' in their shirt-and-tie, phone-in-a-room lifestyle who have their head up their arse so far they can't see these are the reasons we bother to keep ourselves alive.
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