Hallelujah: the record that taught me how to sing
I did a stupid thing by collating all the great Christmas number ones last week and leaving myself with an X Factor winner’s single for this week. But let me do this record some tenuous justice. Because, as we all know, Hallelujah was not an Alexandra Burke original. It was Cohen’s, and then it was Jeff Buckley’s.
I found Hallelujah nestled in the middle of Grace, Buckley’s only studio album. I’m still not sure how I stumbled across it. It was released in 1994 to very little acclaim. Buckley’s theatrical vocals were at odds with his grunge peers. Too hip for middle-aged Lexus drivers, too fey for the moshpit. It was only after his death in 1997, following an ill-fated swim in the Mississippi river, that his star began to ascend.
When I discovered Grace properly, I was in a full-blown punk and hardcore phase. My listening list was basically a bunch of angry men shouting and screaming.
I was also singing in a band, not very well, which I found hugely frustrating. I wanted to be able to do it, I just sucked. I lacked projection, confidence, technique. I would stand, mouse-like, on stage, gripping my guitar for dear life and wishing I could vanish behind it. Go back to being the guitarist again, where I felt safer.
The thing about singing is, most people can do it. What we don’t realise is that, unless we’re prodigies, we need practice. Lots.
And I’d had very little. I’d spent most of my life being too scared to sing in front of anyone. I mimed in every school assembly at primary school because I was so ashamed of how awful I sounded. I’d got a bit more confidence as a teenager, but was still painfully aware that I wasn’t as good as my friends.
And I certainly wasn’t getting any better by barking along to Ian MacKaye.
In the summer of 2001, two things happened. I got my first car, an ancient VW Polo. And I moved to Birmingham on a year out, about as far from my university city of Leeds as I could bear to go. My band and friends were still up north. And I had a two-hour commute each day from King’s Heath to Solihull in standing traffic on the M42. Lots of driving in the week, lots of driving at the weekends. I listened to a lot of music.
And I listened to Grace. To Jeff Buckley, somebody who was singing in my register, beautifully. And once I had completely fallen in love with the songs, very tentatively, then with confidence, I started to sing along. Then I sang and sang, and played that tape over and over again.
Without even realising it, I was being educated. I learnt dynamics, vibrato, I worked my range both up and down. I learned how much better I was after half an hour of warming up, instead of going in cold because I was so scared to sing out loud anywhere that wasn’t a practice room. I learnt how to work emotion into my voice without losing control of it. Nowhere near as artfully as Jeff, but I worked on it eagerly nonetheless.
Somewhere along the line, I started to get better. Nothing miraculous — not like the meek nun in Sister Act, where they just press her belly and she starts singing like Aretha Franklin — a shame. But enough to feel like I could keep working on it, keep improving. There was hope for me, after all.
Anyway. Looking back, it’s bloody weird that of all the incredible singing women in the world I could have ended up being inspired by, I ended up with Jeff. At the time I really believed that every female artist was so effortlessly polished, impossible to even try to emulate. Buckley was safe, weird, alone, vulnerable, like me — I felt, at the time.
Ten years later I was still singing, now the sole singer in a covers band (no guitar to hide behind). Nearly a decade later again here I am still, singing in two bands, choirs and all that. Still not the best, still pedaling like buggery to get better. But enjoying it, always. Crucially, I’m not scared of it anymore.
Tiny step after tiny step. Before you know it you’ve gone for miles.
I should make some trite remark about new year’s resolutions here, but I won’t. I will say — if you want to sing, do it. Start today. Join a singing group. Buy a karaoke machine and practice when everyone’s out. Get someone inspirational on the car stereo and really listen to how they make those incredible sounds. Just keep doing it.
If I can do it, truly, anyone can.
I’m Penny Brazier, a freelance writer, content strategist and microphone hog. I wrote this post as part of the #write52 project.
I’m having a Twitter sabbatical over the Christmas period, but you can still find me posting pictures of my lunch on Instagram.
And here’s my website, if you happen to be looking for a copywriter in 2020. I don’t generally sing in meetings, but can on request.
