escritorzuela

It was my birthday on Saturday! To celebrate, my housemates and I sang karaoke at home. These were the songs I performed!

- As ever, I picked something I wouldn't have to take too seriously as my first song, in this case 'David Duchovny' by Bree Sharp. I had the video playing, naturally, for the whirlwind tour through faces of the nineties. Possibly the most insane moment is Brad Pitt, in character as Tyler Durden, lipsyncing to 'DAVID DUCHOVNY, I KNOW YOU CAN LOVE ME.'

- I introduced 'Water the Roses' by Flavor Foley as 'a gay divorce song', in the knowledge that this would be of interest to my audience. I chose it as my second song because I thought it wouldn't be too tough, but it turned out to be much more challenging than I anticipated; I was trying to sing too high for my range while getting slightly emotional!

- Everyone joined in on 'Sing' by My Chemical Romance, which was fun! Terrible confession: I was in fact hearing the Glee version in my head as I sang.

- By this point I'd warmed up and was feeling ambitious, so I attempted 'Une vie à t'aimer' from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I only sang up to the 2m20s mark, for multiple reasons: a) the song has long instrumental sections that makes it unsuited to karaoke, b) it's an eleven-minute song, which is far too long for karaoke anyway, and c) nobody needs to suffer through me singing dramatically for eleven minutes in a language I do not speak. I enjoyed belting out my best effort at dramatic French, though!

- 'Burn' from Hamilton was another intimidatingly ambitious pick, but I think it went well! There were a couple of points where I ran out of breath at the end of a line, but that actually worked for the emotion of the song, because it made it sound like I was on the verge of tears. Rei followed this up with 'First Burn', an earlier version of the same song, which was interesting to hear!

- My next pick, 'Vienna' by Billy Joel, was a targeted personal attack on Rei, for a couple of reasons. The obvious surface-level reason was the 'hey, slow down, you'll burn yourself out if you try to do everything' lyrics; Rei, and I say this with the deepest fondness, is a slightly frantic overachiever with a tendency to convince themselves that everything is their job and their responsibility.

The other reason 'Vienna' was a personal attack: it was covered in absolutely nonsense bullshit drama The Politician, which Rei and I watched together years ago. Rei, upon realising where they'd heard this song before, bellowed 'YOU MOTHERFUCKER! YOU DUMB PIECE OF SHIT!' at me so loudly that Tem heard it from the loo and burst out laughing.

- My last 'this is far too ambitious' pick before starting to wind down was 'Through the Fire and Flames' by Dragonforce. Again, I only did the first couple of minutes of this; it's seven minutes long and goes at an exhausting pace! I had fun with it, though.

- At one point Rei was out of the room, meaning I was just performing to Tem and Ginger. I chose 'See You in Hell' from Lost Records: Bloom and Rage, as they both enjoy that game, and I hugely enjoyed their delight when they realised what I was about to sing. Tem joined in on the chorus with enthusiasm.

- 'Future World' by Koethe is a song that's resonated more with me every year since it first came out. I don't want a future world! I don't want to be sold the next big thing! Leave me alone!

- Rei and I dueted on Rei's pick of 'The Ticketman' by Rachel Rose Mitchell, which was great fun! (This is a song that gives Rei feelings about Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls.) (A lot of songs give Rei feelings about Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls.)

- Tem and I sang 'Borrowed Time' from Death Note: The Musical together, because it's just not a household karaoke session without Death Note: The Musical. Poor Misa!

- As it was my birthday, I picked the final song: 'Affirmation' by Savage Garden (heads-up for immediate flashing lights in the video). Everyone joined in and danced along to this one! Rei and I used to sing this song with our mutual friend Yuffie when we were all teenagers, dancing around Yuffie's flat.


My favourite performance of the evening was Rei and Tem's enthusiastic rendition of 'RATATATA' (NB flashing lights) by BABYMETAL (played by Tem) and Electric Callboy (played by Rei). This falls into the karaoke curse where I first hear the song performed at karaoke, then go to listen to the actual song and go 'oh, it's not the same when my friends aren't singing it :('

Rei's performance of 'Shining Collection' from Gravitation was a lot of fun! (No link, alas; it's astonishingly hard to find good-quality versions of the original songs from Gravitation.) I was surprised to find myself singing along with a lot of it, despite the song being in high-speed Japanese; I listened to this song a lot when I was fourteen, and apparently the memory of it has never left me.

Tem's performance of 'Suki, Kirai' by Phantom Siita was also memorable. 'I'm going to base this on their live performance,' Tem warned us, 'so, if you find yourself going "wow, Tem's doing a lot," just know that Phantom Siita do even more than that.' Xe proceeded to perform an initially chirpy-sounding song that degenerated into a sobbing, shrieking breakdown.


After karaoke, I used my birthday privileges to make my housemates watch the BBC's 2005 ShakespeaRe-Told adaptation of Macbeth. It's a modern AU, set in a restaurant, in which a young James McAvoy's Macbeth murders the restaurant's owner in order to get the restaurant. It's not called MacChef, but it should be.

I was obsessed with this stupid thing when I was seventeen. To be honest, my love of Joe Macbeth probably laid the groundwork for my later love of Light Yagami. I really enjoy watching a character absolutely psychologically disintegrating while committing multiple murders.

To my delight, Tem loved MacChef! It's the outcome I was hoping for; Tem and I have a deep and inappropriate shared fondness for fictional murderers.