Items30The creator’s order
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Piano ManThe ideal opener because the room does half the work. The verses are a run of barroom portraits, the bartender, the real estate novelist, the sailor, the waitress, delivered at a gentle waltz pace, and every chorus hands the melody to the crowd.
The singer's job is to be the narrator watching them…0 - 2
ConvoyThe safest pick for anyone who swears they cannot sing, because the verses are not really sung at all. They are radio chatter, read out in a trucker's drawl over a country groove, with only the short chorus asking for a tune.
What it does demand is rhythm and nerve with the CB slang: bears,…0 - 3
A Boy Named SueA comic short story with a punchline, written by Shel Silverstein and recorded live at San Quentin Prison. Johnny Cash barely sings it: he speaks it in rhythm, low and dry, and lets the crowd's laughter land between lines.
That makes it perfect for a low or untrained voice, since the whole melody…0 - 4
The GamblerA two-character play on a train: a young narrator, an old card player and the advice that becomes the chorus everyone knows. Kenny Rogers sings it in a warm, unhurried baritone that sits close to speech, so it rewards anyone who can hold a steady low-to-middle range.
The fun is in voicing the old…0 - 5
Fast CarTracy Chapman's 1988 original, a whole life in verses: a checkout job, a father who drinks, a plan to drive out of town, and the slow realization that the escape has turned into the same trap. It is a song for someone who can hold a room quietly.
The verses are low and close to speech, with that…0 - 6
Escape (The Piña Colada Song)A bored man answers a lonely-hearts ad, arranges a meeting in a bar, and finds his own wife waiting. Rupert Holmes tells it in three tidy acts, which makes it one of the easiest stories to put across: the audience knows the twist and still enjoys watching you get to it.
The verses are chatty and…0 - 7
Copacabana (At the Copa)A showgirl, a bartender, a gangster with a diamond and a gunshot, all inside a disco-Latin party tune. Barry Manilow's original is pure theater, and karaoke rewards whoever plays the melodrama straight while the room dances.
It moves faster and sits a little higher than most of this list, so it…0 - 8
Cat's in the CradleHarry Chapin's original, the father-and-son story that turns its own chorus inside out by the last verse. Each verse jumps forward a few years, and the lines are so conversational that the singer is really reporting dialogue.
The melody stays in a comfortable folk range and the pace is steady, so…0 - 9
Ode to Billie JoeBobbie Gentry's Mississippi mystery is mostly a family chatting over dinner while news of a suicide is passed around with the biscuits. There is no real chorus to hit, just a low, sultry, conversational line that repeats, so it rewards a calm voice and a good ear for understatement.
The best…0 - 10
Harper Valley PTAJeannie C. Riley's version, a widowed mother marching into a school meeting in a miniskirt to read out the hypocrisies of everyone who judged her. It is a revenge story with a sly grin, delivered almost entirely as patter over a twangy guitar.
The melody barely moves, so the whole performance is…0
