To hate it when people sing?

[Ilovemybrick2]

I don't mean choirs or humming a happy tune as you do your dishes. I mean randomly breaking out into song.

This might just be my mad family but I'll try and explain

So my mum and her immediate family members do have very nice singing voices and are known in their local area for this.

However they do this thing where they basically start singing and everyone has to stop and listen.

So for example, everyone is at one of their houses for auntie's 60th. Someone will say something that inadvertently reminds someone else of a song (say uncle Pete says the chicken in thyme is lovely, aunt Sally will break out into Wild Mountain Thyme)

And then she'll do this haunting a capella rendition and everyone is expected to stop what they're doing and listen to her, marvelling at her talent or whatever the fuck. Or in my case, wishing she'd be quiet.

Another example - the other day I was giving my mum a lift somewhere with my baby and older child in the back. Baby started fussing. Mum launched into haunting rendition of some fucking song she sings in her choir. Baby fussed more. I had a conversation with older DC regarding baby's rattle, where it was and if DC could reach it. All the time mum is warbling away soulfully. I asked her if she could stop singing a minute so I could hear DC. She then got really ratty with me and snapped "I'm allowed to sing if I want!". But I know that she was pissed off because the car didn't fall silent at the power of her voice, instead we went on a verbal hunt for the fucking rattling dragonfly toy.

Seriously, they do this all the fucking time and it makes me cringe to the point where I want to claw out my eardrums. I feel like a mortified teenager.

AIBU? Am I being petty or is this genuinely annoying as fuck?

I'm not even sure what annoys me about it, I think it's the soulful attitude

Cringe.

I hate it

@Fluffyscamp Omg that is just too funny. If that was his idea of impressing you on a first date how the fuck did he ever manage to find himself a woman. Or maybe he learnt from you running away and thought to himself "I'll drop that stunt as it doesn't appear to work".

Yeah that would piss me off. My family all sing, and we sing all the time, but nobody is expected to stop and listen and it's not some dramatic thing. It's just a background thing we do and we're not above telling each other to shut up either

Yanbu. My nan use to do this and it was always at family gatherings. It drived me insane as she would belt out the white cliffs of Dover whilst flamboyantly waving her arms like Pavarotti.

She would also do it if we were at a place that had either karaoke or an impersonator on but she wouldn't go up to the stage or request a song but hijack the other persons song by belting it across the table so it become an unwanted duet.

I remember one time at a family function they put a rap song on, she moaned that modern music wasn't as good as the old days ect and my uncle jokingly turned around and told her that the only reason she didn't like it was because she 'couldn't sing along to it and ruin it'! She had a face like a smacked arse for the rest of the night

YANBU

I'm cringing just thinking about it.

It reminds me of when I was a teenager. I did a bit of backpacking and stayed in hostels. We would all be sitting in the evening, just chatting and drinking, then some douchebag with a guitar would appear and we'd all have to sit and listen to him singing fucking wonderwall!

I have second hand embarrassment for them 😂😂

All I can think of is Steve Martin singing Tura Lura Lura in Housesitter

m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuJ3bN20dBE

Are you Irish OP? This is a thing here and it drives me mental - there you are having a drink and chat in a pub or at a wedding at 2am and suddenly a warbly song starts and you are being told to "shush, have manners". Like fuck! My manners are fine. I don't want to listen to an off key "rebel song" thanks. I want to enjoy my night. Same with various aunts in law and cousins who like to burst into song with THEIR EYES CLOSED (lost in the moment or just don't want to see my dad or me glaring at them). These people never have a good voice but thats not the point. Its the fact that you are expected to sit there listening to this shite. It gives me the rage.

@DannyWallace just this

m.youtube.com/watch?v=45HzGPyqsW0

Peeps these people add colour to life leave them alone to express I'd much rather this than the absolute silence, talk of nothing other than money or dirt I get at my in laws.

Give me some drama and colour any day  let them sing...

It doesn't have to be one or the other. There is a happy medium though personally I'd take the silence over the singing.

Yes happy medium but having suffered one extreme at least there are other pleasures to be gotten out of the other extreme 😁😁.

The eyeball through the break up song is horrific

I have friends who write songs and I genuinely like their music, and enjoy listening to the songs but cannot bare the eye contact with it!!

Excruciating!

God I am the same. I really really cringe at it! I have no idea why though.

@WineGummyBear

Not yet but I have told all my family and friends that, when I snuff it, they will be playing the Kazoo to either the theme from The Archers or the Star Wars Imperial March when they wheel me down the aisle at the crematorium.

I have also banned any singing apart from the end song which will be "Disco Inferno" then they can warble as much as they bloody like because I will no longer be there to put up with it anymore.

In fact I may make it a point for Kazoo playing if they do start singing at any point during the funeral/ wake at the pub. I bet they bloody will, something mournful but uplifting.... eye twitches

Oh God it'd be like living in a musical. And I fucking hate musicals!

Nope, I've remembered why. My dad played guitar very well and thought he was amazing at singing as well, he would sit and stare at you while he did it and it used to make me SO uncomfortable that now when people sing I can't look at them.

I also do not like musicals....

I sing when I'm cleaning is that allowed

Vulpine yep, unless you make people sit and watch you clean so they can hear you sing.
Or unless you do it like a scene from Annie the musical.

Hahaha!

This would be amusing for about 1 day before if become unbearable.

I still think I'd like to live in a musical for just one day, though.

Have you ever considered beating them at their own game? Working on on your earth-shattering solo?

My family does this, but not in a serious way. When we're all together and someone says a word or a phrase in conversation that either a song title or a line from a song, the rest might spontaneously burst into song for a laugh. We don't do it all the time, it's usually to take the piss out of dh (who hates it). He generally looks at us in disgust before leaving the room. The rest of us sing louder.

So if I sing when other people are in ear shot, that's not allowed cos it's 'cringe'?

Perhaps you could find just the tune to express your suffering through the medium of song...

I know a family like this. At my aunt’s wedding the daughter got up and sang a mournful Les Mis number, I wanted to crawl up my own arse in horror for her

Oh god I’m cringing for you but laughing like a hyena at your brilliant description.

We have a mother at school who breaks into a descant to harmonise against the kids carols at Christmas. It makes me want to die on the spot.

Do you use the Mr Sheen as a microphone whilst staring into the despairing eyes of your children? Imagine little birds helping you sweep the kitchen while you belt out a Disney medley, watched by your in laws? If not then it's not you we're talking about here.
Singing= no problem. Performing to people who can't stand it and don't care= the problem.

oh my god 😂😂😂 this is hilarious. But no, I agree, annoying as fuck. I love to sing and I have a pleasant enough voice, but I never do this. God even the thought of it makes me cringe!