Let’s begin the proper blogging of the 30 Day Challenge with a little ditty, shall we? This song (by the fictitious Fixed Firm Five) was a going away present for one of our teachers, Shannon, who has moved on to a Bikram studio in (no joke) New Zealand.
During one of the last classes Margo and I took with Shannon, we were all resting on our mats between floor poses, recovering in the face down version of Savasana, Dead Body Pose. Shannon said, “I was watching Little Shop of Horrors the other night, and I thought to myself, ‘I really should have been a doo wop girl. Hey, maybe I’ll sing my last class as a doo wop song.’ At which point, I lifted my head off the towel and shot her a “Whatchew talkin’ ‘bout, Shannon?” look, and she started laughing. “Scott just gave me a funny look! Ha ha ha!”
After class, I said, “Watch out. I’m writing that doo wop song. I know who’s going to sing it, too. Johnny Shirasana.”
(For the uninitiated, Janushirasana is the Sanskrit name for Head to Knee pose. But the moment I heard a teacher say it, I thought, “Johnny Shirasana. Sounds like a singer. That’s gotta be a fake band name.” The fake band name—and subsequent matching song title—was a tradition that started between me and my dear friend Erich Groat in 2004, and while it’s abated, we exchange the occasional fake band e-mail, sending each other a dozen or so band names and song titles. The list is nearing 2,500 names. And yes—there are actually some real written and recorded songs as further evidence of how bent we are. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.)
On the way back to our van I told Margo, “I’ve got an idea,” opened up my iPhone recording app, and sung, “Pranayama… mama… doopeedoopeedoo…” There was no way I was losing a song idea. And I had a deadline, too—Shannon’s last class was two weeks away.
Over the next few days, I hashed over chords, dropped the song into a key I could reasonably sing it in—the original key would have been great for a doo wop tenor, but not much for my “good half octave,” as Richard Thompson once described his own vocal range—and scribbled out a few words. I’d been out late the night before, and any time I find myself in a bar, drinking beer and yakking hard for a few hours, my voice the next day resembles a croaking toad. That was the voice I had to work with while recording this. It took a few hours to get my voice to the point where I could belt out the lyrics, so the result is less of a croon and more of a shout, but it gets the song across.
And just because I’m anal-retentive, the backing vocals are singing the Sanskrit names of all the postures, save the two breathing exercises named in the first and last verses. I present to you that great lost Yoga Doo Wop vocal group of the Fifties, The Fixed Firm Five.
Pranayama Mama by scottbishop
Feel free to download this MP3 at http://scottbishop.us/PranayamaMama.mp3
No comments:
Post a Comment