Jeez! (I hate) earnest singing

One thing that really makes me cringe—I guess you could say it’s the one thing I absolutely can’t stand, excluding bugs and filth and bird beaks and cats and creeping vines that seem to have minds full of pure evil—is hearing a group of girls sing in earnest along to the radio. The scene in Harold and Kumar where they sing along to “Hold On” is hilarious, because it’s a self-conscious, ironic scene playing for laughs, as opposed to a trio of college students belting out a self-empowering anthem they feel was written for them, like…..well, . As is the commercial for some car where a bunch of hip young guys drive through the desert and one guy goes a little too far with his enthusiasm for “(Man!)” I Feel Like a Woman.”

It was just that song that recently made me turn the corner from thinking, “Yeah, it would be fun to raise babies to be teenagers” and run smack-dab into the truth, which is that they alternately endear themselves to me (when they remind me of the humiliating moments of my past) and make me want to run far, far away from the knowledge that I was once like them.

This whole high school business can be surreal. Last weekend, I spent 24 hours chaperoning a “camp” (more of a retreat full of Smores, silly games, and giggling in sleeping bags) for a club of the high-achievers of the school. It was like seeing a whole new species to hear them talk about upcoming tests, projects, and even current issues, such as when one girl explained that she decided to be a vegetarian after researching the issue and learning about the ecological costs of meat.

So back to belting out tunes in the car. I’m all for it. But when a group of teenaged girls sings in unison, even if they’re impressively in tune and know every “huh,” “ow!” and “whoa-oa-oa,” it makes my chest hurt to hear these things: the cadences that could only have been perfected with hours of singing alone in one’s bedroom, the glissandos that only studied listenings—countless listenings—to a freaking Shania Twain or Pussycat Dolls album could enable one to emulate. Why does it bug me so much? Why? Did I not pour my heart into “Fast Cars” or “Right Here Waiting” every time they came on? Do I not still do the same with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”?

What is it with song titles containing parentheses that makes them particularly amenable to heartfelt renditions?

Anyway, it’s the singing in earnest that gets me. I mean, I, too, know many of the lyrics to “Dontcha,” but only because it I bought it on iTunes so I could replicate the abs routine from my Body Pump class. But that doesn’t mean I sing along to it, at least not in a way that reveals I am fully invested in its lyrics and Forever 21 aesthetic.

It’s a fine line between those teens and me, and I’d better do everything within my power to etch it ever deeper.