Epic Father's Day Fail - By Rick Murdock

Yesterday was Father's Day, and as is tradition among Mormons on Father's Day, our ward's primary children were set to sing a lovely song.

The song in question: Love is Spoken Here.

You know the one; it starts, "I see my mother kneeling..." and ends with dueling verses, I mean, counterpoint harmony. They, the primary children, had been practicing the piece for about a month and a half and were ready to present it as a gift to their dads and daddies. The second-to-last speaker finished her remarks. It was time. The children filed to the front of the chapel; the younger kids went up on the stand while the older kids stayed down in front of the stand. Boys were on the left, and girls were on the right--they were going to split by gender to sing the harmonies of the last verse.

I stood in the house-left aisle about half-way down, in the midst of the pews. I am, after-all, the recently called primary chorister. The accompanist caught my eye; I scanned the children, and they were set. So I gave a nod and the introduction started. My plan was to lip sync the words and conduct without making myself too much of a distraction. The focus should be on the children, after all, and not on me--never ever on me. The introduction finished--time to sing. I waved my arm into the downbeat, and with as much pronunciation as I could muster I began to mouth the words.

Immediately, I knew something was wrong. There were no human-produced sounds, just the piano continuing on into the first verse of the song. Not a single noise from a single child. No one had accepted my invitation to start singing.

Not wanting to stop and start again, I started to sing, perhaps if they could hear me, they'd follow along.

Now I was singing a solo in front of the congregation. And, the children were watching me do it, offering no help. I put my hand to my ear in the universal sign for "sing louder" as if to beg the children to begin.

They did not care to begin at that time.

The first line ended (I know this, because I was singing it, still as a solo), giving me just enough time to try one last ditch effort to get the kids to sing, "Everyone!" I said to the children, waving my hands in a sweeping gesture hoping against hope that they would have mercy on me and sing even just a little bit.

There was no mercy.

So, I did what I had to do.

I turned to the congregation and brought them in to sing the second half of the first verse. The adults complied.

At the end of the first verse, I thought the ice had been broken enough to give the kids a shot at the second verse, sans congregation. I cut off the congregation and brought in the children for the second verse.

Yes, there was noise. Child-produced, vocal noise. "Okay, we're going to make it," I thought. Yes, the sound was kind of a sing-songy mumble, but it could be defined as singing, and best of all, it was audible.

Then, about one line into the second verse one of the sweet six-year-old girls stepped up to the pulpit microphone and began to sing directly into it.

Her singing, amplified by the microphone, was loud. I tried to get the attention of the bishopric to turn off the microphone. They couldn't see me (something I wish could have applied to everyone in the congregation). I had to do something, so I--conducting all the while--walked up the aisle to the mic and pulled the mic out of her face. I then gave the sweetheart an "A Okay" sign and a wink. I back peddled to my original spot in the aisle just in time to realize that the second verse was over and that the last verse, the duet, was upon us.

Nothing that I had witnessed up to that point had led me to believe that there was any chance in outer darkness that the children would be able to do this. So, I turned to the congregation and said, "will you sing the first verse? Otherwise, this is not going to go very well." The congregation sang the first verse while the kids sang the second verse with no other incident.

Whew.

I sat down, knowing that I had just created the subject of future nightmares.

Ike, Mimi, and Kitty, all three participants in the ill-fated chorus, came back to their seats mumbling something about the word "horrible." I couldn't help but laugh. A lot. It was a happy father's day.