Background Music
Humility is a rare commodity these days. Like gas, the price keeps rising.
Good thing I’ve got a weekly gig singing cover tunes to a crowd that isn’t listening.
Just last night, I got stuffed on another serving of humble pie.
A large group merged chairs and tables at the spot closest to me. I noticed a few of them cupping their ears to better hear each other, so I turned my volume down, fading further into the background.
As I found my way out of “Brown Eyed Girl,” the bartender set a tray of fruity cocktails on the group’s table. A gel-haired guy wearing an aloha shirt picked up a tall glass and raised it toward a woman nervously twisting her silver bracelet. I knew exactly what was coming. Unconcerned with moving the capo so I could play “Dancing in the Dark” in the right key, I dove into the Springsteen anthem, charged with all the nervous energy of the Boss.
I’d just hit the line, “Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself,” when the slick-haired man slipped away from the table and dropped a few bucks into my tip jar. I wanted to yell, “Keep it! Take the whole jar, just don’t ask me what I think you’re about to ask!”
He stood there a few seconds, making sure I’d seen him, then he smiled and ambled over to me. “It’s my wife’s birthday,” he whispered.
“Wanna change my hair, my clothes, my face…” I sang, nodding, fake-smiling with my eyes.
I slowed the tempo, half-hoping for a comet to crash into the big hotel's stone pillars.
I don’t actually know how to play “Happy Birthday” on the guitar. I know, what kind of gigging musician doesn't know “Happy Birthday?”
Not a very good one.
I muted my instrument, backed away from the mic, then fumbled a few practice strums and some quick chord changes. I think I’d almost figured it out when the man raised his hands like a conductor and launched into a deep baritone. I strummed a single G chord, then sang the whole song a cappella.
My only consolation was that by the end of the tune still nobody knew I existed. And I had enough cash in my tip jar to pay for the nearly six-dollar-a-gallon gas to get me home.
