Songs You Don’t Want to be Caught Singing in Aisle 4 of the Supermarket*

Have you ever been in the car with someone, humming a nondescript tune, when the person you’re with asks you what you’re singing? You may not have even noticed you were singing, and now, as you focus and think about it, you're horrified by the result.

 

“Erm, nothing,” you say, followed by “Hey look how lovely the foliage is!”

“Yeah…you were singing. And there are no leaves on the trees,” your companion says to your sheer vexation.

“I don’t remember.”

“Sure you do, come on!”

“I was just humming!”

“Nah, but I recognize it! What was it?”

“Oh for the love of all that lives I was singing Air Supply, OK? 'Making Love Out of Nothing At All' by freaking Air Supply. Happy Now?”

But it could be worse. You could be caught in aisle 4 of the supermarket belting out a song and be caught by, say, me—a complete stranger—as one poor muscle head in a Giants jersey recently did. I rounded the corner and I heard, quite loudly and enthusiastically:

“And I said, what about Breakfast at Tiffany’s? She said, “I think I remember the film? And as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked it,” and I said, “Well, that’s the one thing we’ve got!”

As he finished the verse, our eyes met and he turned five shades of scarlet. In response, my eyebrows raised with a look that clearly stated, “Dude, WTF are you thinking?”

What happens when your mind is hijacked and forced to sing Celine Dion or similar? How is it that we never get caught singing some hard core gansta rap or an obscure yet brilliant indie group like the Subterraneans? Oh no, it’s gotta be Hoobastank or Nickelback or anything that Casey Kasem would have put on his Top 40.

So to all of you who’ve been caught singing a strange song—including the waiter at Dish who absentmindedly sang “Abra Abra Cadabra” while Blog Commenter Jana Lia and I sat giggling and finishing up with “I wanna reach out and grab ya!”—I feel your pain. I grew up in the 80s, I liked big hair bands, and have an uncanny knack for singing music my grandmother would rock to at any given moment.

*This post may make no sense to those under 30 who have never heard of Air Supply or vinyl for that matter. Just substitute the bands I mention with any music that you wouldn’t be caught dead humming—is it too soon to be embarrassed by Bieber?