I tried recording a brand new song last week and also re-recording the vocals for a song I’ve had trouble singing in the past. The old song was wrecked by my inability to easily reach a C and the new song was destroyed by my insistence upon singing the second verse stupidly out of tune. It was a part I’d worked on, relentlessly, before trying to record. Clearly, I needed to practice it more because it failed me on the only few times it really counted. And, being that my singing and my playing seem to be inextricably linked, we tried to do both at the same time for one track. Not a brilliant idea. I will either have to learn to do both separately or spend the rest of my career paying for extra recording sessions because of my inability to get it right in one take.

Have you ever seen that episode of “Father Ted” where Ted decides he wants to enter the “Eurosong” contest? (For those of you unfamiliar with “Father Ted,” it’s about three miserable priests stuck on an Irish island with crazy parishioners. Lapsed Catholics should seriously consider looking it up.) He screams at Dougal to get the guitar; later, you see them in their shared bedroom, cigarette smoke filling the air, Ted looking miserable. Finally, he starts screaming, “I said play the f#&$@!#* note!” as he throws the guitar at the floor. Well, during that recording session, Ted was in my head, screaming at me to play that fucking note while my inner Dougal was hiding, right along with my inner Aretha Franklin. Actually, my inner Aretha has never come out. She just keeps avoiding me, leaving me with pathetic high notes and an over-developed low register. I’m at the point where I’m not sure if I should abandon the difficult song, try my best to sell it, or work my ass off to sing it. I thought it was ready, I thought I was good to go! And then, as soon as I sat down behind that mic, every breath, every noise, every overly-wobbly vibrato becomes so apparent to me that I feel like I could just die right there.

Are all performers like this? Is it just me? Did Robert Smith ever think, “Man, I really wish I had a stronger voice,” or did he just do with what he had, somehow making a fortune off of it? I don’t know. If any of you all out there went through some difficult musical phases, I’d love to hear about it. Tell me how you got over your voice troubles, your recording difficulties, if performing is easier than recording, or vice versa. I’m curious.

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