badideasinaction - 2012-08-22
Sadly, this isn't the worst public performance of this song I've heard. I know, because I was in the worst.
Mike was in the jazz vocal ensemble at school, and given that it was a school ensemble, anyone could be allowed in. Unfortunately, Mike was that magical combination of tone deaf and totally confident in his abilities, with a side of endless enthusiasm on the side. When our teacher offered "Operator" as a possible song, Mike's sense of white-man soul latched onto it immediately, and the teacher couldn't find a diplomatic way to pick a different song after that, because none of us wanted to solo anything.
We performed it and Mike was on fire, filling the auditorium with keyless whitebread soul howling. We all kinda hid in the background singing and cringing.
My music teacher later confided to some of us that when he was feeling really down, he'd have a drink, pop in the videotape of Mike's "Operator" performance and laugh until he felt better. Sadly, this performance is long before the era of youtube, and is probably thankfully collecting dust on some forgotten VHS tape in the basement of a now-probably-retired music teacher.
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