3 Songs I Would Be Happy Never Ever Hearing Again

You know, there are very few songs that I feel if I heard, I would internally (or out loud) swear to myself, tear a phone book in two and take action to prevent that sound from coming from wherever it happened to be coming from. I get that different music has different purposes, and I am fine with that. The only place where a rule of song selection needs to be imposed is at an open-mic.

There are songs that I have probably heard at 90% of all the open mics that I have gone to, and these songs need to be put to bed. They should be outlawed and sent walking across the alkalie flats and possibly shot at for target practice as they go. G'wan now. Git! What are these varmint songs? Okay:

1. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley

Now, I'm not saying this isn't a marvellous cover by, quite frankly, an underrated genius, but if you go out to an open mic tonight there's a 75% chance you will hear this tune. I see the appeal to perform it; good high range for females, very emotionally engaging song and it's a guarantee that it will turn some heads, even if you do it poorly. Even with that being said, this song needs to be sung a lullaby and have ricin slipped into its nightly drink of juice.

It has, unfortunately, become like a radio song that gets played every 21 minutes, and eventually you just start violently shaking because you have no control over the radio (maybe one day, but not now). Jeff did it, and just because Jeff did it doesn't mean everyone should for the remainder of our visits to open mics.

Is it possible that a great marketing venture would be to open a bar called 'Zombie Buckley's' and repeatedly have stage performances of just that song?

2. Creep - Radiohead

This simple tune seems to have an appeal rating of 75 on a 5 point scale to musicians at open mics. Just pick another Radiohead song, any other one. There are many to choose from.

3. Black - Pearl Jam

By far, my favourite band as of late. Vedder and Mcready are geniuses. I don't even play this song all the way through when I hear it on the CD. By doing it well, you may certainly impress with your vocal abilities but you may disappoint with your choice.

Status quo is just not okay. I mean yes, if you are doing it simply to provide background music so that people won't walk out of the bar during your short 3 song performances, go for it. But I just really love it when I hear a tune done extremely well that has rarely been done before (but not as much as original tunes done extremely well).

The only exception to this rule would be performing one of these tunes in such a way that it has 'never been done like this before.' Not 'I have such an incredible voice that you've never heard it done like this before'(your incredible voice will shine on its own without having to do one of these tunes), but 'I play Creep on a harp through a distortion pedal - never been done before'.