Amy Lu's View

Although the AARP did officially start trying to recruit me this year, I don’t consider myself a “Golden Girl” yet.

But I did tackle the theme song for the television show “The Golden Girls” at a recent church online Coffee House.

My inspiration for choosing the song (“Thank You For Being a Friend”) was topical–a song of thanks the Saturday after Thanksgiving definitely seemed appropriate.

I did not choose the song because I’m a huge Golden Girls fan. Oh, I certainly watched it back in the day when it originally aired and enjoyed it, but I don’t remember that much about it and I’ve been mostly oblivious to it’s resurgence. (When it first was on TV I was in high school, and my friend Jenny declared that I was either the “Dorothy” or “Sophia” of our group, depending on how bitchy I was on any given day).

I also decided on this song because it more or less fell in the sweet spot of songs that are in my vocal range that I can also more or less play the chords on.

I was surprised and stymied by the bridge–I had no idea the song had a bridge, much less one that was so vocally and lyrically weird:

“And when we die and float away, into the night, the Milky Way. You’ll hear me call as we ascend. I’ll say your name then once again”

What’s going on here? Are these friends with a suicide pact?

But I wasn’t going to let this goofy-ass lyrical meandering thwart me, OR be defeated by the melody I didn’t know and couldn’t quite figure out. I just sang something that was as close as I could come to matching the actual song that fit the chords. Really, who in the world was going to know this part of the song well enough to know that I wasn’t faithfully recreating it. And if someone did notice, I could always claim it was an artistic “choice”–a choice not to bother to learn the song, but still, a choice.

And most importantly, a choice to sing.

Recently I had a conversation with friends about singing–why we love it, how it is primal and rooted in our very beings, how vulnerable it makes us feel and how absolutely terrifying it can be to sing in front of other people.

This week I discovered a poem with this line:

“Here is where I began to look with my own eyes and listen with my ears and sing my own song, shaky as it is.”

–from “Map of the Journey” by Victoria Safford

This line really “struck a chord” with me (pun intended) because I frequently get shaky when I sing, especially if I’m trying to play piano at the same time. (Yes, I do realize the poem doesn’t have to refer to a literal song).

Any song we sing becomes “ours”–because the song is made with our voice and our body, it is our song, at least for that moment (even if it is a cover of a silly 70’s song).

Perhaps one of the reasons many of us love singing so much is because it IS terrifying and makes us vulnerable, and when we find the courage to sing anyway, it’s exhilarating..

Like one of the characters I play in our upcoming Christmas show, I/we can approach life with:

“Head back, eyes closed, voice raised in whatever song I can muster the courage to sing.”

from Robert Fulghum’s “Uh-Oh, Here Comes Christmas”

I’m not sure what my through line is for this post (yeah, I couldn’t resist saying “through line”) except courage. It takes courage to be a “Golden Girl,” and courage to have a friend and be friend, and courage to sing,

And it takes courage to listen to your aging friends sing.

*I do NOT expect to be doing this song anytime soon, as wonderful as it is, because sadly it doesn’t fit in my musical sweet spot.