Harder, I'm Sure, Than It Seems.
Yesterday, we hosted an informal karaoke afternoon at our house to celebrate Tem's birthday. It was a lot of fun!
The great thing about holding your own karaoke session is that you can sing all the weird, obscure songs that you wouldn't find at an actual karaoke place. In this post, I will be linking to some of the songs mentioned and not linking to others, with no apparent rhyme or reason.
Tem and I kicked off the event with 'Where Is the Justice?' from Death Note: The Musical, which is a very intense first song for an afternoon of karaoke. I was shaking the whole time I sang Light's part (with the outrage and injustice of it all, naturally), which, I'll admit, probably did not improve my singing voice. There were mildly horrified exclamations from the room at the lyrics, and then laughter when I got too warm halfway through and shrugged off my hoodie, revealing the Death Note T-shirt beneath.
Tem and I performed so many songs from Death Note: The Musical, in fact, that we started having to introduce them with a brief 'previously on Death Note' rundown. After we collaborated on 'Where Is the Justice', Tem performed 'Hurricane' and 'Kira', I sang 'The Way Things Are', and then we both gave our all for 'Playing His Game'.
'Playing His Game' is a fantastically homoerotic duet, and I don't think the room was entirely prepared for it. At the line 'what does he do late at night when the world is sleeping?', people gasped. As Light and L, we got closer and closer over the course of the song and ended up belting out our determination to defeat each other with our arms around each other's shoulders.
I was Light, naturally. When Tem and I sing Death Note duets, I have to be Light and Tem has to be L; it's the law.
'I feel like we should make out,' Tem said at the end of 'Playing His Game', and frankly I'd also found myself thinking 'it feels like, for the performance, we should kiss, but for the sake of our relationship we probably shouldn't'. Seems very apt to be internally going 'what's the correct course of action here??' while singing as Light and L.
'I've been dating you for six years, and that's the gayest thing I've ever seen you do,' Rei informed Tem as we sat back down.
One of the most delightful aspects of the afternoon, in fact, was watching Tem have sexual tension with everyone in the room in turn: 'Playing His Game' with me, 'My Dead Gay Son' from Heathers with Rei, 'Barbie Girl' with one of our guests (who had done a surprise costume change in the bathroom and emerged dressed fully as Ken, wig and all).
My other song choices were 'Something's Always Wrong' by Toad the Wet Sprocket, 'How You Remind Me' by Nickelback, and 'Chop Away at My Heart' by lumberjack boyband the Lumberzacks from Milo Murphy's Law. I sang the last of these with Rei, and the room cracked up every time Rei called 'Timber!'
I also hugely enjoyed Rei and Tem's passionate duet of 'The Ballad of Sara Berry' from 35MM: A Musical Exhibition, Tem's intense BABYMETAL performances ('Headbanger' in particular looked exhausting), and a guest's troublingly dedicated version of 'Tubthumping' by Chumbawamba, in which she actually threw herself onto the floor at every occurrence of the line 'I get knocked down'.
A great time! Sorry to everyone we forcibly introduced to the concept of Death Note. (I am not actually sorry.)
The great thing about holding your own karaoke session is that you can sing all the weird, obscure songs that you wouldn't find at an actual karaoke place. In this post, I will be linking to some of the songs mentioned and not linking to others, with no apparent rhyme or reason.
Tem and I kicked off the event with 'Where Is the Justice?' from Death Note: The Musical, which is a very intense first song for an afternoon of karaoke. I was shaking the whole time I sang Light's part (with the outrage and injustice of it all, naturally), which, I'll admit, probably did not improve my singing voice. There were mildly horrified exclamations from the room at the lyrics, and then laughter when I got too warm halfway through and shrugged off my hoodie, revealing the Death Note T-shirt beneath.
Tem and I performed so many songs from Death Note: The Musical, in fact, that we started having to introduce them with a brief 'previously on Death Note' rundown. After we collaborated on 'Where Is the Justice', Tem performed 'Hurricane' and 'Kira', I sang 'The Way Things Are', and then we both gave our all for 'Playing His Game'.
'Playing His Game' is a fantastically homoerotic duet, and I don't think the room was entirely prepared for it. At the line 'what does he do late at night when the world is sleeping?', people gasped. As Light and L, we got closer and closer over the course of the song and ended up belting out our determination to defeat each other with our arms around each other's shoulders.
I was Light, naturally. When Tem and I sing Death Note duets, I have to be Light and Tem has to be L; it's the law.
'I feel like we should make out,' Tem said at the end of 'Playing His Game', and frankly I'd also found myself thinking 'it feels like, for the performance, we should kiss, but for the sake of our relationship we probably shouldn't'. Seems very apt to be internally going 'what's the correct course of action here??' while singing as Light and L.
'I've been dating you for six years, and that's the gayest thing I've ever seen you do,' Rei informed Tem as we sat back down.
One of the most delightful aspects of the afternoon, in fact, was watching Tem have sexual tension with everyone in the room in turn: 'Playing His Game' with me, 'My Dead Gay Son' from Heathers with Rei, 'Barbie Girl' with one of our guests (who had done a surprise costume change in the bathroom and emerged dressed fully as Ken, wig and all).
My other song choices were 'Something's Always Wrong' by Toad the Wet Sprocket, 'How You Remind Me' by Nickelback, and 'Chop Away at My Heart' by lumberjack boyband the Lumberzacks from Milo Murphy's Law. I sang the last of these with Rei, and the room cracked up every time Rei called 'Timber!'
I also hugely enjoyed Rei and Tem's passionate duet of 'The Ballad of Sara Berry' from 35MM: A Musical Exhibition, Tem's intense BABYMETAL performances ('Headbanger' in particular looked exhausting), and a guest's troublingly dedicated version of 'Tubthumping' by Chumbawamba, in which she actually threw herself onto the floor at every occurrence of the line 'I get knocked down'.
A great time! Sorry to everyone we forcibly introduced to the concept of Death Note. (I am not actually sorry.)