The Cathartic Healing Power of Karaoke
I guzzle down a few cans of Tecate and shots of tequila to take the edge off, leaning on the bar in a dimly lit Passyunk Avenue cafe. I’m buzzed enough to do something stupid, like sing a Bruce Springsteen song to a crowd of people.
“Alright, everybody, give it up for Shamus!” the guy running the bar’s karaoke night says to the patrons.
I walk up and grab the mic. I don’t think I’ve ever used a microphone before. Am I going to hold it too close to my mouth and sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown? Do I put it on the stand? Nah, I wanna hold it and walk around like I’m Mick Jagger. I’m on a stage. I could jump off the stage in the middle of the song while singing. That would be cool, right? I’m going to do that I think.
The drum solo of the song kicks in. Ah, shit, there are a lot of people out there. Screw ’em. I get ready to deliver my best baritone.
“Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland…”
I know the lyrics by heart, so ingrained in my brain after years of screaming them while speeding down I-76. I don’t even need to look at them scrolling by one the television screen. I look at the people in the audience. Some of them are trashed and dancing like a fool, even more so than the one I look like. Others are buried in their phones. A few friendly souls clap and sing along with me, giving in to my inner rock star dreams.
After what feels like the 1,000th utterance of “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, badlands!” I’m just relived to head off the stage. The sensation in my chest reminds of the first time I had sex: a mix of exhuberance for what I had done and the understanding that I probably had left everyone watching disappointed. Do I care? Hell no.
I walk home from the bar a little more proud than the condition I usually stumble home in. I’m feeling, dare I say it, happy? This feeling has been missing from as of late. I need more of it.
Karaoke ultimately wasn’t something stupid I did. (The stupid thing I did was going and taking more tequila shots after I got off stage and texting a girl I used to hook up with that I missed her that night). It was cathartic. Karaoke was empowering, an escape from the demons I was battling inside my confused and troubled 22-year-old body.
This was a weird and difficult time in my life. I guess this was around late May, early June. It was the summer after my senior year of college. I was drinking entirely too much and too frequently, attempting to keep up with a lifestyle I was no longer suited for. I couldn’t stand moving back home, a significant transition from my non-stop-parting attitude and freedom at college. I felt trapped, as if I had lost The Game, the longterm and most important one. “Maybe this town breaks the bones from your back, it’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap,” if you will. The unspoken knowledge that my mental health was in horrendous shape, bubbling under the surface of all of my actions and decisions, wore on me just too hard.
I think I just needed to feel alive, to do something that would spark my soul in the midst of a personality crisis. I had no clue what I wanted to do with myself. Depression had tricked me into hating writing. I really just sort of hated myself in general. I wanted to die and needed a way to stay afloat. It just so happened that screaming into a microphone while bombed in a room full of drunken strangers was what did it for me.
All of the songs I would run through had the ideas of redemption, loss, embarrassment, vulnerability, and the journey for more in life bursting out of their lyrics.
“God, it’s so painful when something that’s so close is still so far out of reach…”
“Do you wanna walk with me out on the wire? ‘Cause, baby, I’m just a scared and lonely rider…”
“Coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing just fine, gotta, gotta, be down because I want it all…”
“Spend your life waiting for a moment that just don’t come, so don’t waste your time waiting…”
“It’s a town full of losers, and I’m pulling out of here to win…”
I was the broken hero on a last chance power drive. I was my own worst enemy. I was singing for the lonely. I had people creeping back in my memory for one desperate moment. I was opening up my eager eyes to a world where I felt unrestrained, unbound to the chains of depression and anxiety and worry. I was now living out these songs I had being singing to myself for years and experiencing them in an entirely new fashion.
I kept going back the rest of the summer and into the fall on the bar’s karaoke nights. I went just as recently as last Friday, belting out “Born to Run” for the umpteenth time. “Give it up for my man Shamus! This is one of my regulars!” the emcee introduces me. There are certainly better things in life than being a regular in a South Philly bar, but at this particular time, it’s a welcoming home.
I wouldn’t end up seeking treatment for what I later learned was bipolar disorder until a month or two after I initially rocked Adobe Cafe like it was Wembley Stadium, but maybe I would never would have gotten to that point without feeling the need to finally get out of bed on Fridays and Saturdays to sing my heart out.
For a similar read on my mental health struggles, check out this article that discusses them in relation to my Philadelphia Eagles fandom.
