broo broo skies

Years ago, before we were married, my wife and I used to kill time on Saturdays nights by watching Medford public access television. In the mid-to-late 1990’s, Medford Channel 3’s offerings were pretty unique compared to what was coming out of its neighboring communities. Where Woburn’s public access programming largely consisted of taped city council meetings and last Sunday’s First Congregational Church services, Medford provided a wide open platform for local auteurs to strut their stuff in interesting, if not always successful, ways.

One could tune in at any given hour and be treated to homebrew martial arts and horror films, sketch comedy of varying quality, a local scenester’s answer to Howard Stern’s and David Letterman’s shows, and my personal favorite, hour-long blocks of karaoke performances taped a local bar the previous weekend.

I have nothing against karaoke, per se, but I’m inflexible in my conviction that it depends on its environs to function properly. Performances that would be perfectly acceptable in the smoky, alcoholic haze of a dive bar or wedding reception become uncomfortably intimate glimpses into the soul when viewed via cathode ray tube in the comfort of one’s bedroom. The clips were presented without any context, which begged all sorts of questions about the folks onstage and goaded us into forensically reconstructing their lives based on their interpretations of popular songs.

What was the story behind the thick-necked, sunburned contractor-type who delivered a pitch-perfect rendition of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”? Was the overly cosmeticized thirty-something who slurred her was through Madonna’s “Holiday” a former Saugus club queen, trying to grasp a bit of the cocaine-and-vodka-fueled magic of her life before marriage, three kids, and mortgage payments brought her crashing back to earth?

We once caught someone my wife and I knew from college strutting her stuff in front of the camera. She was a nerdy, fantasy aficionado, and her choice of song, Joan Osborne’s “One of Us,” sent the pathos meter crashing into the red zone, an unforgettable bit of spiritual voyeurism to which a long painful wince is the only logical response.

That brings us to today’s featured track, one I’ve been waiting to spring on you folks for a while now, but I couldn't come up with the proper context to do so. The song is “Sky High” from Takenobu Mitsuyoshi’s soundtrack for Sega’s 1993 hit videogame, Daytona USA. Although it’s my policy to shy away from describing music in the entirely subjective terms of “best” or “worst,” this song is, without a doubt, one of the most pernicious little earworms I’ve had the misfortune to encounter.

It starts off innocently enough; light, energetic jazz rock of the type familiar to even the most casual j-pop/anime/videogame fan. Then the vocals kick in, and the nightmare begins in earnest. I don’t want to seem ethnocentric here. My studies of the Japanese language were cut short when I realized I had a specific sort of tone deafness that prevented me from grasping the correct intonations and inflections necessary to master it. I knew I was over my head, and chose to bow out rather than to reach for something that would forever exceed my grasp. It’s not just linguistic either, if one’s vocal range is limited, the wisest course is to avoid ever singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” If only the singer on “Sky High” had been as conscious of his own limitations. A singer with shaky grasp of tricky English consonants and lyrics that go out of their way to showcase said consonants is a recipe for aural damnation. “Frying high” and “broo broo skies,” indeed.

He gives it his best shot, however, apparently unaware of the horrors being unleashed by his vocal cords, and feels confident enough to toss in the obligatory “hey, ay, yo” soulful flourishes. I can’t help imagining Osaka’s reigning karaoke champion -- with punch-permed hair, a pencil thin mustache, and the finest fashions 1978 has to offer -- his hands pressed against his headphones and his eyes screwed tightly shut in emotive rapture pouring out his soul in the recording booth.

Wow. Now I feel a bit ashamed for making fun of the song…

All this obloquy might seem a bit much for something created as sonic wallpaper for a racing game, and if the experience ended with the “Game Over” screen I’d agree, but the song lingers, having used the game as a effective delivery system by which to permanently imprint itself upon one’s neurons. Hours, days, weeks later something will inescapably trigger the hard-coded mnemonic sequence, and you’ll find yourself softly humming and muttering “I want to fry, sky high” to yourself as you wait in line at the ATM or local Dunkin Donuts.

Or not. It might just be me.

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi – Sky High (from the Daytona USA OST, 1994)