Posted on 02/07/2010 10:12:46 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
GENERAL SANTOS, the Philippines — After a day of barbering, Rodolfo Gregorio went to his neighborhood karaoke bar still smelling of talcum powder. Putting aside his glass of Red Horse Extra Strong beer, he grasped a microphone with a habitué’s self-assuredness and briefly stilled the room with the Platters’ “My Prayer.”
Next, he belted out crowd-pleasers by Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. But Mr. Gregorio, 63, a witness to countless fistfights and occasional stabbings erupting from disputes over karaoke singing, did not dare choose one beloved classic: Frank Sinatra’s version of “My Way.”
“I used to like ‘My Way,’ but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it,” he said. “You can get killed.”
The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”
The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently sinister in the song?
Whatever the reason, many karaoke bars have removed the song from their playbooks. And the country’s many Sinatra lovers, like Mr. Gregorio here in this city in the southernmost Philippines, are practicing self-censorship out of perceived self-preservation.
Karaoke-related killings are not limited to the Philippines. In the past two years alone, a Malaysian man was fatally stabbed for hogging the microphone at a bar and a Thai man killed eight of his neighbors in a rage after they sang John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Now that.. I can kind of understand.
Good thing I know I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Might keep me alive.
My wife even looks at me funny when I get a little too boisterous during a good old time gospel song.
LOL
Hmmmm interesting. That part of the Phils, Mindanao, supposedly has the highest concentration of Filipino Muslims.
In an unrelated story, Marxian youth-rebels have been issuing formal “denunciations” (in imitation of leftists during the Spanish Civil War) in cafe houses across America to anyone who recites Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken.”
if I didn't know better I would think this is from The Onion. I work with many Philipino men and women. They back up what is contained in this article.
I’m waiting to do “Feelings, wo wo wo, feelings.” On second thought, maybe not a wise move. Or that song about Obama that Laura Ingram sometimes plays on her show, “Barack Husein Obama, he’s a true, true, friend” or something like that.
My wife knows how much I hate that song, and how much of an earworm it is. So, every now and then, she'll hum a few bars, and I'll be stuck with the damn thing in my head all day. :)
Think of the carnage if one of them warbled a Barry Manilow tune.
When I was a nightclub performer, one particular club insisted that we do “Me & Bobby McGee” at the start and end of each set. With five sets that meant singing it ten times a night, sixty times a week. It was making me crazy, so I would do it in a different genre every time; Bobby’s Boogie, Bobby’s Waltz, Bobby’s Marching Band, Bobby’s Disco, etc, etc.
Oh how I loathe that song to this day.
Mandy, oh Mandy
Wow.
Bookmarked forever.
Don’t start ... I may have to hunt you down for manilowing us.
Oh my Lord. I KILL YOU!!
Decades ago, I told our wedding band that if they played ‘Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog’ I would smash their guitars over the speakers. I meant it and they knew I meant it. The band’s leader looked a little surprised at my anti-request (I guess the song was on their normal playlist) but they did not play that song.
“Oh how I loathe that song to this day.” I worked as a bouncer in a Disco for a while. Whenever I hear Disco music I want to beat someone with a five cell Maglite.
This is a little offbeat, but too good not to ping.
Absolutely hilarious.
Bookmarking this baby!!!!
I would stay away from Mexican tourist towns.
OK, I promise. I won’t mention Barry Manilow, not even that her name was Lola, she was a showgirl with yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there. Promise, really.
If you do hunt me down, you’ll have to come in and I’ll cook you an Italian dinner . (smiles)
I read this whole story on the Oldies Board this morning - this“ isn’t about all those songs that annoy some people.
‘I did it my way’ — it’s so arrogant,” Mr. Albarracin said. “The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody. It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.”
I tend to agree with those comments (not that they should inspire killing) but I’ve always thought the song to be the height of arrogance.
So they’re back up singers?
Only done karoake once. I was on my way back from a plant commissioning, and was stuck in some Kansas town due to an ice storm. “I Drink Alone” by Gearge Thorogood, except I sounded like Lemme Kilmister from Motorhead.
But not when Frank did it.
“...a Thai man killed eight of his neighbors in a rage after they sang John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.””
I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest Ya Ba* may have been involved.
*Thai methamphetamine (lit. “crazy medicine”)
BTW, the Philippines produces one of my all-time favorite beers - San Miguel Pilsen.
Just thought I’d share that with everyone.
Hey, he was a good friend of mine, but I never understood a word he said.
>Hmmmm interesting. That part of the Phils, Mindanao, supposedly has the highest concentration of Filipino Muslims.
Not really. General Santos City is home to the world’s pound for pound best boxer: Manny Pacquiao, a devout Christian. The Philippines is the most Christian nation in Asia and that region, except to the East. I have in-law relatives in the Philippines who have family in the adjacent province and have nearly visited that city once while in the RP before flying to Cebu.
BTW, there are also US and Australian Special forces operating in Mindanao close by as reported by the Philippine MSM.
Oh Yeah. “Someone left the cake out in the rain”
You had to be completely stoned to understand any part of that idiot song.
Thanks for almost taking me back. LOL
At least he did not wear one white glove and sing “Beat it” . . .
Wow.
Some people take their music pretty seriously.
I feel your pain. I worked a summer at a “BBQ and Bluegrass” restaurant with a house band that played the same songs three sets a day.
Y'all better de-escalate this, before folks go nuclear with the Shatner and Nimoy LPs. Or, God forbid, the Plastic Ono Band.
I had a dream that I threw myself around a room in a tantum when someone wanted to play that song. Good to see someone else hates it as much as I do.
I helped him drink his wine.
....I surrender!
I never payed attention to the lyrics, but, from your description, it sounds like it could be Obama’s theme song.
and he always had some mighty fine wine.
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