hands clean

favorite song to sing in the shower

Even though its common practice to welcome the day with a cleansing shower while the coffee brews and the sun peeks in through the verticals, my preference is to shower in the evening, after the day has beat across me. I find it healing to sit down to dinner, fully refreshed and ready to relax completely.

That said, most of the time I soften the bed head and rinse away the rheum from my eyes in the morning, in the shower - where I have been singing for as long as I can remember. Hell, I have been showering for as long as I can remember, given the unfortunate fact that bathtubs in rentals are tailor made for shorter folk than myself. There is something to be said for the comfort and relaxation that baths seem to offer, but when 35% of your body can't comfortably submerge, what's the point. I don't think I would necessarily ease back, scrubber in hand, surrounded by modesty protecting bubbles, and belt out a tune, though.

I regularly take to singing very quickly, and it often comes in little spurts as lines of regular life word associate me into lyric land. I feel that when I sing in the shower, songs take a similar shape. Sometimes humming, sometimes whistling, and sometimes out and out singing, but almost invariably complete medley. I know a lot of songs by heart, but have been known to lose sight when a cappella hits - an opening verse here, a chorus there. It's all good. Sometimes I will run through a short song I know well to time out my shower appropriately. Sometimes I will hit up a verse of something I want to try at karaoke, since bathrooms are well-known for their solid acoustics - most recently "You've Made Me So Very Happy" by Blood, Sweat, and Tears, "Right Down the Line" by Gerry Rafferty, "Punk Rock Girl" by Dead Milkmen, and "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails.

For some reason "We Didn't Start to Fire" has come up a lot over the years, too. In fact the whole Billy Joel repertoire is easily up for grabs, and makes me wonder if that's where these catchy tunes originate. Each of the Beatles have been in the shower with me, as have the Bee Gees, ABBA, Madonna, Prince, Ministry, Eminem, the folks from "Grease", and so many more. It's been a veritable musical orgy, but I certainly have no favorite.