Choir/band folks: What's the most embarrassing song you've performed?

[flamingyouth]

I played the cello in my elementary school's orchestra, and we used to play "Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)," which I always thought was incongruous on the cello. Also, I sang in the choir, and we did all kinds of silly stuff. I recall singing "Your Song" by Elton John at the Federal Building in Seattle. :D We used to sing at all kinds of retirement and nursing homes. In retrospect, I pity our audiences.

When I got to junior high, I switched to flute and piccolo, in a misguided attempt to be "cool." Now, here's where it gets really funny. We did a medley of KISS songs from Destroyer, "Detroit Rock City," "Beth" and "Shout It Out Loud." With me on the piccolo. :7 This was in 1980-81 or thereabouts. It was dreadfully awful, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Anyway, surely someone can top my KISS fiasco...

[LisaM]

1. Well I remember our band sight-reading a tango

at a really slow high school sigh-reading pace and all of a sudden it became clear it was supposed to be a tango and everyone burst out laughing (including the director.)

[sundog]

2. "These Dreams" by Heart

How do you say cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze???

80's marching band hell.

[SarahB]

3. Deep River Woman

It was high school chorus in the late 80's. During rehearsals, someone always inevitably shouted out "throat" instead of River. We could hardly get through the song without laughing during the performance. All of us biting our tongues.
I can still sing a mean "Phantom of the Opera" though. :o

[Fenris]

4. 1997. We played a medley from the "film" 'Titanic'

Which included yours truly with a stunning tenor sax solo on "My Heart Will Go On."

The movie was really popular at the time. Otherwise it would have to be when our jazz band played a Dan Folgleberg song. Guess who was the only tenor sax.:7

[dolo amber]

5. We did what can only be called a

calypso rendition of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" in middle school band...fortunately for me I played drums and thus didn't have to hear much of it. x(

[Fenris]

7. LOL. We did a similar calypso version of "Oye Como Va"

:7 Rocked the hizzouse with that one!

[Ron Green]

6. "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head"...

with some very fine jazz players. It was at a country club years ago and some Republican a-hole just had to hear it. All the guys felt pretty creepy doing it, because it was not booked as a pop gig, but a jazz one.

[TwilightZone]

8. Yeah, well, how about Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA"?

Yes, that ultimate in gag factor, Lee Greenwood's sappy, crappy "song".

We practiced it in high school choir, and it was supposed to be included in one of our concerts.

I, along with several other members of the choir, threatened to sit out the concert if we were forced to sing it publicly. Our choir director thankfully gave in to our threat and removed it from the performance.

[flamingyouth]

10. Ding! Ding! Ding!

We have a winner, folks! Thank you, TwilightZone, for providing the single worst song performed by a choir or band. I wish I had a good prize for you. I'd like to give you the gift of never, ever having to hear that song again! :D

[TwilightZone]

13. Believe me, I felt like I'd won the lottery when our choir director

announced that she'd pulled the song from the concert list! :P

Few things generate as much dread as a die-hard liberal expecting to have to sign that ludicrous song in front of people.

[gbwarming]

9. Theme from 'Dallas'

This was marching band circa '79-81. I also recall playing the Battlestar Galactica theme and... 'Gonna Fly Now' (which wasn't really awful for a marching band halftime show. Good brass parts at least.)

[TwilightZone]

15. 'Dallas' was everywhere.

It seemed like every, single halftime of every, single football game featured that song.

[Norbert]

11. Coming Through the Rye

Every lassie hes her laddie.

[liontamer]

12. our marching band once did a michael jackson theme

It actually went pretty well all things considering

[RandomKoolzip]

14. In 1991, our high school choir did a song called "Point of Light..."

That, I think was written by Randy Travis. This was during the Bush 1 years, and nobody but me seemed to make the comnnection between GHWB's "1000 points of light" speech and the lyrics to the song, which extolled the virtue of being a good christian American so that you "may be a point of light." Fucking Dreadful. I tried telling my friends in Choir and they thought I was nuts.

Also, we did a "spiritual" called "Shut De Do'," with embarrassingly blackface-like lyrics sung in faux-negro patois: "Shut de do'/keep out de debbil/Shut de do'/keep de debbil in de night...." I think we had three or four black kids in our school at that time.

I didn't go to choir that much that year; I was in the library a lot.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Seventh grade choir

The whole year.

It was the early sixties, and we sang out of a book that had been put together expressly for seventh grade choirs. All the pieces were in three parts: sopranos, altos, and "boys," and they were either written or given new words for the purpose of being included in the book.

My least favorite was "Shanty Boys," which our director loved, for some reason. It went,

We are a crew of shanty boys as jolly as can be
No matter where we go, my boys, we're always gay and free.
Blow high or low no fear we know
As to our work we're bound to go
Our axes sing, the woods do ring
With shanty boys, hi ho!
(This was the first verse. The refrain was the last four lines in an elaborate harmonization. There was a second verse, which I have mercifully forgotten, but it ended with "bread, pie, molasses, oh!")

Then there was:

Well hidden in shadows the cool mosses grow
They share the rich beauty that simple things show...

I wonder if it was all a plot to turn kids off singing.

[LisaM]

20. "We're always gay and free. Blow high or low...."

Now, let me ask you a question about the choir director, and the part marked "boys".....

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. LOL! Actually, he was more seducing underage girls

and everyone knew it, although for some reason, he wasn't fired until about twenty years after I graduated from high school.

You have to understand that the "homosexual" meaning of "gay" was not common knowledge in Middle America in 1962.

[LisaM]

26. Understood, but what about "blow"?

If I were the judge, your song would be the winner.

We had to sing one that went:

Land of the silver birch
Home of the beaver
Where once the mighty moose (this was Michigan!)
Wandered at will
Blue lake and rocky shore
I will return once more
Boom ditty boom boom
Boom ditty boom boom
Boom. Boom. Boom.

[Texasgal]

17. Can anyone beat

Xanadu? We did a whole half time show to it, including the flag people who all had those ugly headbands on that were pastel pink and blue....with matching leg warmers...UGGGG!

[Red State Rebel]

22. ROFL That's cruel and unusual punishment!

I can just see that colorguard - hahaha!

[asthmaticeog]

18. In Jr. High choir we did "One Tin Soldier"

Which is super fucked up when you consider that Coven was a Satanist concept band. (Side two of their first album was a recording of a Black Mass.)

[Blue-Jay]

19. H.S. Marching Band - We did "Africa" by Toto on the field.

To our credit, however, we also did an Earth Wind & Fire show that same year. The following year, we hired one of the guys who designed shows for the Phantom Regiment and played only classical music on the field. That was much better.

[Red State Rebel]

24. Phantom Regiment is a great Corps!

It always helps to get in good designers :)

I've toured with Cavaliers before as a volunteer and it's fabulous - love Drum Corps.

[Red State Rebel]

21. I judge at Marching Band Competitions, oh the stories I could tell....

My worst memories are of songs like In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida or Knights in White Satin.

I judge Colorguard so I look at the visual part of the show and I've seen some funny stuff happen on a football field. A twirler last year had to stop her performance to stomp out the fire she started when she set her fire baton down, on young man's pants fell to his ankles one year and he just kept on marching....you wouldn't believe it.

[LisaM]

23. The Holland, Michigan band used to march in wooden shoes

I don't know if they still do, but we would see them at Band Day.