All The Rage

I sing karaoke. Three years ago, that’s a sentence I’d have fashioned only in mordant irony. Now it’s a commonplace: I like watching baseball, walking New York City streets, and singing karaoke. Credit or blame can be assigned to my friend P, an artsy fellow with serious vocal chops known to end a stressful workday by walking into a midtown Japanese karaoke club, the type with private booths, and spending a rigorous hour belting pop standards to himself. A great stress release, he said; you’d enjoy it. This first struck me as ridiculous. Now it seems intuitive. 

As I can’t always get to my favored karaoke club or piano bar, I on occasion release stress in my living room, camped close to my speakers and, I trust, not disturbing the neighbors. (No complaints so far; my building’s solid construction -- high ceilings, solid walls, thick floors -- favors their tranquility.) Last week, trying to shake my dark post-election mood, I was learning Rufus Wainwright’s “California,” a sunny-sounding melody that I’d enjoyed but whose lyrics I’d never plumbed. I knew it wasn’t a love letter to my home state; the way at the end of the first chorus Rufus drags out “California, please” is nothing if not sardonic. But further attention reveals deep scorn for its cultural vapidity -- a rainbow postcard etched in acid: 

"Ain’t it a shame that all the world can’t enjoy your mad traditions. 

Ain’t it a shame that all the world don’t got keys to their own ignitions. 

Life is the longest death in California."

Discovering anger as the song’s motivating emotion made it more satisfying to sing. 

This week, seeking more set pieces for my Self-Delusional Cabaret, I listened to the Billy Bragg B-side “Sulk,” another upbeat number whose bitter content -- boyfriend in late-stage relationship meltdown -- perhaps kept Bragg from adding it to a studio album: 

"Why do I want to hide whenever you show up?

You know your moods just make me want to throw up.

Why don't you just bloody well grow up?

You just sulk."

I texted my friend G, a guide for all things pop-culture related. “‘Sulk’ is terrific but kind of hostile,” he wrote. “The audience may be put off. The song makes you the sulker.” Exactly why I like it, I realized. 

By then I’d moved on to Elvis Costello’s “All The Rage,” which overleaps the high bar Elvis has set for angry relationship songs. You can’t pen words to an ex- much more vicious than this: 

"Alone with your tweezers and your handkerchief

You murder time and truth, love, laughter, and belief. 

So don’t try to touch my heart, it’s darker than you think.

And don’t try to read my mind, because it’s full of disappearing ink."

I texted G: What about a set with those two back-to-back?  “Jesus,” he wrote. “Delusional Alienation Cabaret.” 

I recalled a recent first date on which I’d suggested we meet at a karaoke club. (She had sung a bit professionally and seemed kind; I was feeling brave.) We were getting along pretty well, chatting and trading songs, until I broke out my big number, a passionate lament of Chris Isaak’s called “Please”: 

"I keep listening, very quietly. 

You’re discussing your philosophy. 

There’s a long list of what’s wrong with me,

And you go on talking endlessly...

Please. You’re killing me with all these questions."

“Wow,” she said. “Maybe we need to change it up.” She sang “Que Sera Sera.” There was no second date. 

I’m versed in theories of white male American anger. By any standard I’m privileged as all get-out; I have little cultural rationale for packing my share. In my 50s, trailing a handful of failed relationships and years of therapy, aware of the addicts' admonition that rage is a luxury we can't afford, and mindful of how it affects my 9-year-old, I like to think that I’m carrying less of it around. And then I see my list of karaoke favorites includes Fountains Of Wayne’s “Maureen” (wanna-be boyfriend warns woman to stop regaling him with her relationship exploits); Radiohead’s “Bones” (guy who used to fly like Peter Pan is now “crippled and cracked, ground to dust and ash”); and Ben Folds’ “Selfless Cold And Composed” (singer tells his ex- to punch him instead of “smiling like a bank teller blankly telling me Have a nice life”).

What does this have to do with the Age Of Trump? I’ve been telling people I’m in shock. Numbed. Scared. My karaoke set list, meanwhile, sings a different tune.