A bed of nails

Do you find that some stories you hear stick with you and are replayed over and over again in your own head?

Years ago, my friend Ryan told me about an amazing experience he had while at karaoke, and I think about it with surprising frequency.

The bar where Ryan and his friends liked to go (back in the days before marriage and kids and mortgages) was near the theatre where “Mamma Mia” was being performed. Well, one night the cast of the hit musical showed up for karaoke!

One of the actors sang Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses”. Ryan said that until this incident, he didn’t realize that there were such high notes in the song; this guy had an amazing vocal range and could hit and hold every high note that Jon Bon Jovi just grated through.

When I think about this story, it fills me with wonder – what would it actually sound like??? I imagine it would be just a little like a blind person trying to imagine the sky without ever having seen it. I can't imagine being among the audience in this humble karaoke bar, perhaps after fumbling through my own performance of "I Will Survive" or listening to some drunk guy try to sing "Billie Jean" and then be pole-axed, gobsmacked, awestruck by such a display of enormous ability and talent. I imagine it would have been thrilling to be there that night.

And yet, I think about the lyrics:

I want to lay you down on a bed of roses
For tonight I sleep on a bed on nails

If memory serves, the highest notes are on the phrase “bed of nails”. When Jon Bon Jovi sings those words, he does pretty well until the end of the song, when his voice scratches a little bit like fingernails on a blackboard. And yet, it’s a little appropriate, don’t you think? I can imagine some operatic tenor singing these lyrics, and yet the vocal perfection would undermine the whole sense of heartbreak and hard knocks. So if I could hear it performed by someone with an amazing voice, would it forever ruin the song for me?

Yes, I am obsessing about a performance I will never see. :)