My Audition for "Don't Forget the Lyrics"

I love song lyrics. Melodies are nice, but to me, the lyrics make the song. Nothing makes me madder than to hear some drummer or guitarist say something like, "the lyrics don't matter anyway," when they are trying to pitch a project to me. I am a singer/songwriter. OF COURSE the lyrics matter! So when I got the chance to audition for the new, daytime syndicated version of "Don't Forget the Lyrics," I was thrilled.

I have actually auditioned for this show twice before, when it was on at night, hosted by the hilarious and immensely talented Wayne Brady, and you could win $1 million. However, both times, although I did well on the written lyrics test, I must have been nervous, because I had too much vibrato on Carly Simon's "Let the River Run," and my voice cracked on the big high note on Juice Newton's "The Sweetest Thing." Plus these are really old songs, and kind of obscure. So I never got to meet the producers who ultimately choose who gets on the show. This year, when the casting director called me, she actually said, "We really want to get you on the show this year. So we want you to come to the open call, but with a VIP appointment so you can meet our new host AND meet the producers." Wow - that was a big step in the right direction! I just had to take the lyrics test right then, on the phone. No pressure. Actually, the test wasn't too hard. Most of the songs were from my dating era, the 1970s and 80s, and since I have sung in so many bands, I knew a lot of songs from the 1950-60s and 1990s. It's only the last decade that I suck at, like rap and hip hop. If I get on the show, I will have to study hard. She told me I only missed 3 out of 30 songs, which she said was "great." The hardest thing is they want the exact lyric, with the prepositions like "the" and "that", etc., in the right places, which is not easy. But I got the VIP slot.

The new host is Mark McGrath of E! Extra and former (current?) lead singer of Sugar Ray, a band I had never heard of, but apparently he is very famous. The open call was held at the ESPN Zone's LA Live Club in the huge open air mall in front of the Staples Center where the Lakers play. It was an absolutely gorgeous Saturday, and when I arrived for my 2 p.m. appointment, there was a long line of people waiting to get in, non-VIPs as it turned out. The Casting Director had told me on the phone to park and come directly to the front of the line when I arrived, so I did, avoiding the dirty looks of all the people on line. However, I didn't get to go right in - far from it. I had to get into a shorter line to fill out paper work, with questions like "how many songs do you know the lyrics to" to questions like "what is the biggest risk you have ever taken?" They like interesting answers, so I tried to come up with stuff that they would like to hear about.

While I was in line, I started talking to the other people around me, as I usually do, making insta-friends and handing out cards. There were about 12 of us waiting to go in, and of that 12, three of us including me were from Alabama! Now, I meet Southerners in LA all the time - they love the climate, and it's not as liberal as San Francisco, so they fit in better here - but for 25% of the line to be from my home state was quite a coincidence. We had photos made accordingly. Finally, Mark McGrath appeared, in full makeup with his hair seriously gelled into a forest of points. He was very cute with a nice, Hollywood-white smile. He was with a full camera crew, and he said he wanted to go down the row of 12 and have us all tell about ourselves and sing a song for the camera. This will be shown on E!Extra as the new promo for the show (sorry, I don't know when). I wasn't really ready for this - windblown hair, sunburned face, not warmed up, but you do what you have to do. So when my moment came, he asked the usual questions: where are you from? how long have you been here? are you nervous? what are you going to sing? I told him I wasn't nervous, and he said why, because you might forget the lyrics. I said "honey, I KNOW these lyrics." He actually blushed a little. So I sang the Lee Ann Rimes country ballad "How DO I Live" directly to him, touching his shoulder and his cheek and really flirting big-time. When I was done, he said, "You sure are a polished singer." I told him that I used to be a wedding singer and that I really wanted to get on the show. He replied, "Well you sure have the personality for it." So I think that part went well.

Then it was time to go inside and meet the producer, in this case a producer's assistant, although I do think one of the producers was listening outsider at one point. She took 12 of us into a large room with glass walls that was very noisy. I could hardly hear myself speak. She asked us a few questions based on our paperwork, but mostly they wanted to know what our favorite kind of music is and why and then to hear us sing a song loudly from that genre. When it was my turn I sang my old stand-by, "Let's Give Em Something to Talk About," and I actually think I went up too high on the jump during the verse which would be really bad. I'm not sure because like I said, I couldn't hear myself. But although it was a strong confident belt with good tone, the wrong note is still the wrong note. And I can sing that song in my sleep! When we had all sung, and there were some fabulous performances including one totally buttoned down white woman who did a perfect version of "Baby Got Back," the producer's assistant asked five women to stay so she could ask them a few more questions, and I was not one of them. She assured us that that didn't mean anything in terms of whether we were cast or not, but in my experience, it almost certainly means that we were not. Damn. She did say that if we had not heard by the first week of July, it meant we didn't make it this year, but I didn't need to hear that to know that I had probably missed the cut once again.

So what did I learn? Well, I learned that the new show is only going to have a payout of $100,000, so it's best to try to get on a game show when it is in prime time. I learned that while I'm not nervous in interviews with celebrities (more on that in my upcoming post in "The Streamys"), it still doesn't help my singing. I learned I need to rehearse for auditions like this so I can sing better. And I learned I'm still pretty competitive, and I'm going to keep on doing this until I get back on a Game Show, any game show, and win some more money!

Til next time,
Namaste
Jennie