When I was a junior in high school, we had a project where we had to make some sort of satire (just like the movie Mean Girls, which is coming to its tenth anniversary…jeez, I’m getting old). There were many forms of satire we could attempt, but I ended up choosing to “mock” a popular song. Basically I had to take the melody and rhythm of some popular song and make fun of something.
Obviously I chose to utilize Beyoncé’s “Halo.” Like, how hard would that be.
As it turned out, incredibly hard. As a male with a deep voice, singing any kind of Beyoncé, let alone “Halo,” is not an easy accomplishment. The funny part is that I did not realize this until the night before the project was due. I had decided to record the song to see how I sounded before I would “perform” my hit in front of the class. When I listened back to my recording I was all:
YIKES!!!!
I’m not a terrible singer or musician, I’m just not Beyoncé (sad face…sort of), and I was trying to be…make of that what you will….
Needless to say, every time I hear “Halo” I’m reminded of that disaster and I always cringe. Which is why I can only listen to Beyoncé’s music in small dosages…any prolonged listening session reminds me of the night I decided to become Beyoncé.
Tonight, however, I decided to listen to “Halo” on repeat. Apparently I’m a masochist.
Actually, no. I’m tired of running from my fears or my mistakes. I’m tired of being embarrassed of things that may or may not have happened. I know life is too short to worry about things, but until now I never lived with that PHILosophy (see what I did there…my name is Phillip…philosophy…PHILosophy….hehehe). I’ve just decided in the last five seconds that I’m not ever going to hide myself again or avoid being myself in the company of others. A group of idiots may have had a problem with that when I was in high school, but you know what, I don’t care anymore. It’s like what Hagrid says in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:
“There’s some who’d always hold it up against yeh … there’s some who’d even pretend they just had big bones rather than stand up an’ say — I am what I am, an’ I’m not ashamed.” (HP4)
So, I may not be Beyoncé. Who cares? I’m Phillip. And I think he’s pretty awesome.
P.S. I decided to name "Halo" by Beyoncé as #PhillipsSongOfTheDay because of the above story, but also because I think Ryan Tedder did a #fab job with the production…the drum beat and piano really make the song, in addition to Beyoncé's vocal performance.
