turn around bright eyes excerpt

Turn Around Bright EyesThe Rituals of Love and KaraokeRob Sheffield It Books, an Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers

TurnAround_4p.indd 3 6/4/13 1:52 PM

turn around bright eyes. Copyright © 2013 by Rob Sheffield. All

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first edition

Designed by Shannon Plunkett

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available upon

request.

ISBN 978- 0- 06- 220762- 3

13 14 15 16 17 ov/rrd 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1


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One

8:04 p.m.:

Total eclipse of the heart

1Once upon a time I was falling apart. Now I’m always falling

in love.

By “now” I mean Saturday night, in one of the sleazy karaoke

bars where I always seem to wind up. It’s me and my wife, some-

where in New York City. We’re here to sing the night away. It’s

just after eight, early enough to beat the midnight crowds, too late

to talk ourselves out of what lies ahead. We’re not going home

before we get a few songs in. And we’re not getting up on time

tomorrow. Sometimes we drag some innocent bystanders along.

Tonight it’s just us.

Either way, we always come here for a fix of that transcendent

experience we can only get from singing. The electric frazzle in

the voices, the crackle of the microphones, the smell of sweat,

mildew, vodka, and pheromones— the full karaoke experience.


Turn Around BrighT EyEs

2

Tonight we are setting out to belt some of our favorite songs.

We’ll do songs we’ve never tried before. We’ll take on duets we

haven’t sung together. And we’ll do the standards we always

have to do. But when you take that karaoke microphone in your

hand, you don’t know what kind of adventure you’re stepping

into. So you just have to surrender and let the song take over.

You start to sing karaoke, and some kind of psychic heart- switch

flips. If you’re lucky, and the beer doesn’t run out, it’s more than

just a night of debauchery. It’s a spiritual quest.

This spiritual quest, like so many spiritual quests, involves

Bonnie Tyler.

2Welcome to Sing Sing, our beloved karaoke den on Avenue A.

Ally and I cherish this spot because it has everything you want

in a karaoke place: great songbook, private rooms, surly bartend-

ers, cheap drinks. Every time we head over to Sing Sing, I get

that thrill of anticipation as we pad down Avenue A. As soon as I

see that red awning over the door, even from a few blocks away,

the adrenaline starts to flow. The awning has the classic yin- and-

yang symbol of the Tao. Except it’s at the center of a microphone.

From the sidewalk outside, Sing Sing looks like any other ka-

raoke bar. There’s always a picture of a microphone outside.

There’s a door guy checking drivers’ licenses, probably wishing

he could be the door guy somewhere swankier, maybe a club

where they have a velvet rope and a strict no- Journey policy.

Inside, it’s dim fluorescent lights and red walls. The customers

perch on their bar stools, just a few notes away from crashing


ToTAl eClipse of The heART

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to the floor. There’s usually a bartender. And there are always

songs. That’s why we’re here.

I love the crowd at Sing Sing. It’s part of the show. You

can always hear rockers and rappers and disco cowgirls and

smoothed- out crooners. Despite the early hour, there’s already

a bachelorette party full of blitzed bridesmaids teetering on

their heels, ready to start splashing their Disaronno- and- Sprite

on everyone. There are some lurkers in the shadows, too wast-

ed to remember whose birthday they came here to celebrate.

Maybe none of us can sing on key, but nobody minds. We’re

not here to judge, right? Nobody’s here because they’re a great

singer. We came because we want to be stars for a night.

Some places have a stage; other places you sing at the bar or

grab a table. One of the reasons we love Sing Sing is they have

the private rooms, which is definitely the way we want to go

tonight. If you get there soon after 8 p.m., you can usually score

one, but by ten, you’ll get stuck on the waiting list.

Karaoke has lots of rituals. The first, naturally, is showing up.

The second: Ally and I check in at the front desk to get our room.

It’s eight dollars an hour per person for the room, or two dollars

per song if you sit at the bar. But it’s cheaper to rent the room,

which means you stay later and sing more. You can sign up for

a specified time, or you can sing until the bartenders throw you

out at closing time. I can already tell tonight is going to be the

second kind. But hey— it’s Saturday night, so I guess that makes

it all right.

The karaoke host leads us down the hall. I get that familiar

tingle as we head downstairs, across the black and white tiles,



4

under the flickering bulbs associated with prison movies or Min-

istry videos. Sing Sing has a few dozen rooms in the basement—

it’s a labyrinth down there. Ally and I have sung in every one

of those rooms by now. The host turns on the karaoke machine

and makes sure the remote control works. The TV screen has the

lyrics and the goofy karaoke videos. There’s also a buzzer on the

wall we can press to order more drinks.

This room was obviously decorated by a color- blind stripper

in 1982. It’s halfway between “suburban rec room” and “motel

meth lab.” The couch has been jumped on by so many wasted

girls over the years, you know it’s indestructible. And the day

it gets vacuumed will be the day Buddy Holly shows up to sing

“Peggy Sue” for you in person. If you’re Catholic, this room might

remind you of a confessional. But no, the rooms are never pretty.

Why should they be? The owners know why you keep coming

back here, and it’s not the décor. It’s that raw, primal need.

There’s never a clock, never a window. It’s just like a casino

where they want to keep the suckers playing as long as possible.

After a few songs, you’ll have no idea how long you’ve been sing-

ing, or how much longer you can last. If you’ve ordered a few

rounds, you can use the empties to measure how long you’ve

been there.

Down in the karaoke room, the first order of business is to

grab yourself a songbook. They’re fat binders, the size of cinder

blocks. Some of the books might be soggy from the previous oc-

cupants’ spilled cocktails. Others might smell funkier than the

couch. The pages are laminated, which might have to do with

the amount of human bodily fluids that get splattered on them.



5

But I’ve flipped through every page of this book with love and

reverence. For some of our favorite tunes, we don’t even have to

look up the number. “Ziggy Stardust,” that’s 117718. (The version

without the video. It’s always better without the video.) Those

magic numbers are fried onto my brain. I mean, I couldn’t tell

you my blood pressure right now, but I can tell you my favorite

Aaliyah song is 119283.

Ally and I already know our first song tonight. She just takes

the remote and punches in 117498. That’s “Total Eclipse of the

Heart.” Everybody has their warm- up song, their go- to jam, the

one that gets the blood pumping. This one is ours. For all kara-

oke freaks around the nation, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is one

of those sacred anthems. It’s the kind of song that announces,

“Dearly beloved, we have so totally gathered here today.” It’s the

entrance antiphon of the ceremony.

But for Ally and me, it’s the first duet we ever sang, ten years

ago, right after we met. Our first karaoke date was a Lower East

Side loft party. (Certain friends of mine still remember this as

“liquid mescaline night.”) The place was thick with clubsters

and models and writers, plus a couple of karaoke hosts, Sid and

Buddy, dressed up as their favorite dead rock stars. Ally and I

made our debut with “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” The piano

intro began and we took up our mikes. Ally took the hard part,

i.e., the half of the song that has several million words crammed

in there. Me, I took the easy part. I began to sing the mantra:

“Turn around.”

It’s funny— ten years ago, this song was just another eighties

oldie to me. I probably heard it all the time, yet never noticed



6

it. I figured I already knew it. But I had never sung it with this

woman. And after that, it was a whole new song. Turn around. So

I hear it now and it reminds me of this woman I love. It’s just one

of the many insane adventures we stumbled into together. Turn

around. No matter how many times I hear it, the song will always

flood me with memories of all the times we’ve sung it. Next time

I hear it, tonight might be one of those memories. Turn around.

The song always starts the same way. Those same four piano

notes, over and over. But I can already tell this is just the first

shot of a marathon epic karaoke quest. I don’t care how late we

have to stay to get our fix. We will torch one great song after

another, until they pull the plug and kill the lights and beg us to

go home. Turn around.

One long night of karaoke, looping the clock around. And for-

ever’s gonna start tonight.

3My voice has never actually killed anyone. I am positive of that.

But yeah, did I mention I can’t sing? I can’t. It’s bad. I have

loved music all my life, and as they say, you always hurt the

one you love. So I have spent my whole life trying to sing, while

other people try to escape. I have been described variously as a

“hard trier,” a “good sport,” and a “vocal Chernobyl.” But oh, it’s

bad. And hence my karaoke problem. I am hopelessly obsessed

with karaoke because it lets me do the one thing I’ve craved

every minute of my life. It lets me sing.

It’s not like I haven’t tried before. I’ve always been an obses-

sive pop fan. I write for Rolling Stone, so I blast music all day,



7

every day, constantly on the prowl for my next favorite song.

But I never had the talent to sing or play an instrument. Here’s

a complete list of my credentials as a singer: A kindhearted mu-

sic teacher let me sing baritone in the high school chorus. I am

fantastic at remembering the lyrics to every song. I rarely gush

blood from the mouth. I have both of my lungs. And let me em-

phasize: My voice has never killed anybody.

But that’s it for my credentials. Tacos will grow on Christmas

trees before I learn to carry a tune. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter.

In karaoke, talent means nada; enthusiasm is everything. What

I lack in talent, I make up for in passion. Hence my karaoke

problem.

If you’re someone like me, a fan who loves music but could

never hack it as a musician, karaoke changes everything. It un-

locks the door to center stage. It’s a safe and welcoming place

where anyone can join in the music. So even if you never sum-

moned the courage or skill to cross that line from fan to partici-

pant, karaoke is something anybody can do. Your only limits are

emotional. Indeed, it forces you to keep upping your emotional

ante, as you voice your innermost feelings out loud. And that’s

the weirdest thing about karaoke— sometimes you can feel like

you’re experiencing some of the most honest, most intimate mo-

ments of your life, while butchering a Hall & Oates song at 2

a.m. in a room full of strangers.

That intimacy is what makes it such an addictive vice. With

karaoke you’re really putting yourself out there. People are going

to watch you and stare. But the whole culture around karaoke

creates a temporary environment of total acceptance. When we



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do karaoke, we sing along with songs we hate. We cheer for the

weirdos across the room. We high- five strangers. You dim the

lights, crank the volume, and you can get away with anything.

Over the years, I’ve gotten totally obsessed. Like I said, I have

a karaoke problem. But admitting the fact that you have a prob-

lem is the first step toward making it an even bigger problem.

4I got obsessed with karaoke around the time I got obsessed with

Ally. It’s a fact: Getting obsessed with a girl is a good way of get-

ting obsessed with anything.

For us, karaoke is one of our shared passions, and it’s one of

the ways we communicate. Ally is an astrophysicist and a glam

rocker, so I always keep learning new things about the universe

from her. And even after years of marriage, I still find out strange

new things about this girl when we sing together. Every time we

get our microphone cords tangled up, I get a little more obsessed

with her.

I got into karaoke at a time when I felt like my life was a used

firecracker. I was only in my early thirties, but I figured it was

all too late for me. I was a miserable widower with no idea how

to muddle on. The happy chapter of my life was over, and the

world had run out of surprises. But it turned out my life was just

beginning. I fell in love, I got married, I found a new life and a

new home. Karaoke was just one of those surprises. But for me,

it turned out to be a way of finding my voice. Something about it

opened up doors for me emotionally. For me, it was part of com-

ing back to life.



9

Right now, here in the basement of Sing Sing, Ally and I are in

for the night. We’re punching in the numbers and loading up the

machine for hours to come. We don’t know where the songs will

lead us, what kinds of memories or sensations they’re going to

trigger. But we will clutch the mike and feel the surge. If friends

show up to join us here, all the better. That just means more

songs. We’ll blast each other with requests and duets until they

kick us out at 4 a.m. Then it’s good- night hugs and cabs. There

will be friends dropped off until it’s back to just Ally and me.

As soon as we get home, we’ll fix some toast with cheddar on it,

before we fall asleep to dream of rock & roll.

Is this thing on? Good. Because I am. We’re here to sing. Every

now and then we come together. Every now and then I fall apart.


turn around bright eyes excerpt

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