We hear noises at night. They are the kind of noises that make us glance up to the ceiling and then at each other in wonder. We are both wondering the same thing, so we need not even voice it. We wonder what he looks like, what he is wearing, who his friends are, where he comes from, why is he in Japan, what his day job is, what those words are, what the moves look like...
I hear the noises right now infact, as I am typing this. They are getting louder and louder...
We have a singer in our building!
He is no ordinary hummer, strummer or shower singer. He is a hardcore, no stop, full time singer. He sings in his room, he sings on the stairs, he sings at the mail box, and right now he is up there in his 6 mat apartment with what sounds like a full piece band, including back up singers and dancers.
He is an elusive singer, so we can only imagine what he actually looks like and what he is actually doing.
The thing about our singer is that he is not genre specific and he sings neither in English or Japanese, so neither of us know what he is swooning about. Some nights he is 'hee hee'ing like Michael Jackson while quite obviously busting some sleek MJ moves. I have heard him at the mail box checking for his latest gas bill while belting out a theatrical masterpiece and right now I can hear him...he is clapping (without a steady beat) the songs tempo is sporadic, the backing band kicks in and shuts of, his harmony will be smooth and low and then all of a sudden without mercy he cranks up the volume and is singing 'heeeeeeenaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh hhheeeeeeeeennnaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh'.
I am no judge of good music (you saw my recent hit list) but I know a steady beat and a soulful, spirited voice when I hear one. Our singer posesses very little voice quality, there is nothing soothing, soulful or attractive about what he does. In any other country his singing/screaming would be followed by an even louder scream of 'Listen Pal if you don't shut the hell up, I am gonna come up there and rip your tonsils out'. In any other country I would assume he had a very expensive drug habit.
Besides the twisted entertainment value (we are dying to see what he really looks like, even though he has been doing this almost every day for months we still have not caught a good look), the beauty of our singer is that he, aswell as being tone deaf, is deaf to self doubt. His scratchy voice and odd lyrics scream passion. His disregard for the outside world is something I deeply admire. He obviously has that poster on his wall, you know the one...dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening. For some that is simply an affirmation to aspire to, a bunch of words that somebody wrote down that sounds like a pretty cool idea...but for our singer it is his truth. I wouldn't trade our singer for anything.
At precisely 1:38 am this morning, as I wandered along a comparatively quiet Meiji Dori, in an effort to save myself $40 in cab fare, the chill in the air overcame me. I was forced to seek a place to relieve myself of the remaining chu hi in my catchment area left there from the previous 2 hour karaoke session.
