This Stage Is All Mine, Baby!

by Kathy Tirrell

I am a shower singer. I admit it. If there were a support group for this affliction, I'd step up to the podium and announce, "My name is Kathy and I'm a shower singer."

I know you're laughing right now. I can hear you. But this is a serious problem.

So what IS a shower singer?

Why, of course, it's a singer who is just too darn shy to sing in front of people, preferring the privacy and anonymity of a watery, steamy, tiled-in stage. After all, can't chance hitting a clinker during that big, fancy Broadway number. Oh no. Plus, the acoustics are so much better in the bathroom, don't you think? I guess it's the combination of hot running water, steam and a closed door. I don't know what it is exactly, but I sound great in the shower.

I've created a whole montage of material for my invisible audience, such as Joni Mitchell's Circle Game, Barbra Streisand's Evergreen and Marty, the Martian, Karen Carpenter's For All We Know, and if I'm in the right kind of mood and voice perhaps I'll even attempt a little snippet of Tina Turner's What's Love Got To Do With It. But mainly, Shower Time is my golden opportunity for my killer Cher imitation. Oh yes, Cher! I've been a huge fan of hers for many years. A key reason is she's one of the only singers I can truly imitate since she has such a very deep voice. Gotta love those altos!

Here's a little sampling of a song Cher used to sing during a weekly segment on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. And of course, it happens to be one of my favorite shower songs:

"Saucy, sexy Sadie Thompson
drove the native boys insane,
She was the first missionary's downfall,
And brother could she make it rain!
When hurricane Sadie shook the bamboo huts
the preacher went bananas,
he went cocoanuts,
She was a scamp, a camp,
and a bit of a tramp,
She was a V--A--M--P, Vamp!"

I don't know why I like this little song so much, but most of it has stayed stuck in my brain cells for all of these years. (Okay, I did have to do some research to fill in some of the lyrics I couldn't quite recall.) After all, The Sonny & Cher Show ran from 1971 to 1974, and I was a high school student for most of that time. But I certainly do remember tuning in each week for the songs, the outfits, and the comedy skits. As a quiet, unpopular teenage girl, I wanted to BE Cher. I couldn't think of anything better. I will never forget when our senior class was preparing for the annual Senior Variety Show. There was a dark-haired girl named Patricia who most kids thought looked very much like Cher. And she did. So she and one of the boys decided their act for the variety show would be appearing on stage dressed as Sonny and Cher and lip-synching "I Got You Babe". And there I was (probably hiding in my locker) thinking: BUT WAIT A MINUTE! I don't look like Cher, but I can sing like Cher!  Isn't that more of a talent than simply looking like her?

I thought it was. But alas, I was a shrinking violet and didn't have the courage to audition for our variety show. No, a person needed to be popular and confident to get up on stage in front of all her peers and belt out a song.

Fast forward 30 years or more and I still don't have the guts to get up on stage and belt out a song. However, I do have a shower! Now I'm no longer holding back. This tiled-in stage is all mine, baby! When I slip under that nozzle and feel the warm spray hit my shoulders, that's my cue to start singing. It's fun, it's freeing, why, it's probably even therapeutic. Who needs a shrink when you can jump into a shower and sing your heart out?

Excuse me now. I feel a song coming on.


For other musings of mine, I hope you'll visit me on my blog.  It's It Bloggles The Mind