What song did you lip-synch publicly — back when you thought lip-synching was a talent? Here’s why I’m asking: When I was in fifth or sixth grade (fortunately, past my Oak Ridge Boys’ "Elvira" phase), I "performed" "Victory" by Kool & the Gang (pictured) in a school talent show. I must have been better than I remember, because I moved on to Hollywood Round 2 at the grandstand stage at the county fair grounds. Since it wasn’t actually during the county fair, the audience was composed of roughly 20 parents. But still, those people were treated to the spectacle of me, dressed in a Penn State football jersey and white sweatpants, blowing confetti out of a small plastic megaphone. (Come on, that’s good stuff.)
If you don’t have lip-synching stories — special shout-out to my colleague Adam Markovitz, who did Michael Jackson’s "Black or White" with his fifth or sixth grade buddies while wearing sweatsuits sewn together to be half black, half white — feel free to broaden this out to include any performance art. My cubemate Fred McKindra insists he went from nerd to cool kid in Little Rock, Ark. after doin’ a little East Coast swang to Boyz II Men’s "Motown Philly" in the fifth grade, while Missy Schwartz recounts busting third-grade moves to "Beat It" in a Brownies talent show. EW’s Jason Adams admits he was part of an all-boy Go-Gos airband in the fourth grade (they did "We Got the Beat" and "Our Lips are Sealed"). And before Kansas-bred Tanner Stransky lip-synched Montell Jordan’s "This is How We Do It" in the seventh grade, he took part in a sixth-grade talent show parody of…the Ricki Lake show. (I don’t know which one delights me more.)
Your turn.
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This one’s easy….5th Grade I did Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” with my friends as backup. Considering the fact that I’m extremely shy and hate getting up in front of people, this was a feat in itself!!
5th Grade, Camp Kiwanee, 1989: me and my BFFs put on a killer show to The Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace”. Complete with homemade poodle skirts (which I still have) and “pony tails…hanging down”. We totally thought we had that talent show in the bag, but the kid who did the “Purple People Eater” lip synch with his My Pet Monster doll stole it right out from under us. We also used to put on regular lip synch shows on the bleachers everyday at recess to various 80s songs – favorite artists included New Kids on the Block, Tiffany, Debbie Gisbon and Paula Abdul.
I love lipsynch because I am an horrible singer so I can lipsynch and pretend I am actually good! I have always been a huge George Michael fan ( and I am way too young to be that much of a fan) and even now, I love to lipsynch Freedom 90, pretending to be one of those model of the video…
OMG this confessional was made for me! When I was in the 6th grade, I hung upside down, painted a face on my chin (well, eyes and nose and then your mouth is the mouth, but upside down, does that make sense?), and performed Weird Al’s Like A Surgeon. And I totally won! My fellow 6th graders thought it was hi-larious. That gave me the confidence to enter the talent show at Piano Camp (Yes, they really have that), complete with a costume that looked like scrubs. Unfortunately, I came in second. Probably to someone who played the piano. But, seriously, it takes way more talent to lip synch upside down.
My sister and I like to re-create the end dance scene in “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” to “Time after Time”
I performed “It’s Raining Men” with my friends in choir robes. (Sadly, we were all adults and can’t claim being a kid as an excuse.) We must have been popular though cause later that year we did Aretha’s Respect as a special request (and to my sister and her camcorder’s particular delight.)
I actually organized my entire 6th grade class back in ‘86 to recreate the video for “We are the world” for our talent show that year. It was not pretty.I was Tina Turner….and I am the whitest midwesterner around!
My best friend and I like to perform interpretive (sp?) car dances and lip synch (although I am sure our real voices slip out)to any boy band songs. Our favorite???? “The One” by Backstreet Boys. We’re teaching her 2 year old great things…
My BFF and I used to coordinate trampoline routines (on one of those mini trampolines) to Madonna’s “This used to be My Playground.” We’d had a very dramatic backstory crafted around this song, and acted it out with bouncing and sad arm movements….
I don’t know if this counts as performance art, but in college, inspired by the end of Bridget Jones Diary where she runs after her guy in a cardigan, skimpy underwear and sneakers, we decided to stage our own “Bridget Jones Run.” We waited for the first snowfall of the year, stipped down to our (matching) underwear and sweaters, drank a glass of champagne for courage, and ran around our campus at night. I’m sure it was a memorable performance for the snowplow guy, who was the only one out to see us…
oh yes, it was the 5th grade talent show and it had me lipsynching “thriller” written all over it. i got friends together weeks in advance to rehearse the zombie dance moves (pivot < head to one side), made elaborate sets out of those rolls of construction paper found in elementary schools, so by showtime, i was ready. we totally nailed it! but what really sealed the deal, though: i used watercolor paint to make cat eyes on my eyelids, so that at the end, i would close my eyes to get the cool effect MJ does. but after all the dancing, the paint just sort of smudged and it looked like i was just closing my eyes at the end of the routine. we won, though. : )
In the 6th grade talent show, I performed a dance routine to “Caribean Queen” by Billy Ocean. (The song was popular at the time.) To this day, every time I run into my 6th grade teacher, he brings up that dance. BTW- I had a tropical print outfit & hot pink palm tree earrings!
When I was in high school I put a wig on my chest, tube socks down my pants and wore a huge pair of mirrored sunglasses and performed Young Girl by Gary Puckett. I did not move on in the competition…
All my besties and I did “I think we are alone now” by Tiffany for our “senior all night party.” The sad part – it was 97! hehe!
So my first foray into lip-synching was around 8-years-old, second grade. For our talent show I dressed up like an old lady (gray haired wig, old lady gown, sitting on a rocking chair) and “sang” The Judds “Old Pictures” and made my grams cry.
Then, in high school drama (yeah, I was one of those kids), one of our midterm assignments was to lip-synch a song in a group. Three of my girlfriends and I chose “Missing You” by Tamia, Brandy, Chaka Khan, and Gladys Knight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiGO_5t-Kxo. Damn I miss drama class!
PS – fun topic, i can’t believe it’s up to #34, rock on popwatch confessional!
My little brother became king of the school was he only in kindergarten. He was the opening act at our elementary school talent show and lip synched “All Shook Up.” My parents actually dyed his hair black and bought him special sunglasses and recruited three kindergarten girls to be poodle-skirted back-up dancers. (Looking back on it now, this seems completely out of character for my parents.) He even took his toy guitar on stage. He got really into it, doing the hip swivels and the Elvis lip and when, at the end, he “Thank you–thank you very much”ed into the microphone, the place went crazy. I became “Stu’s brother” for a solid three years.
Coincidentally, I later won an Elvis impersonation contest at one of my high school dances. $50 Borders Gift Card! Score!
Ok. Just mentioning Penn State was enough to win me over. Don’t tell me you were from the State College area? Or Better yet did you go to psu?
Let’s see…I did Smashmouth’s “Allstar” in the 7th grade. Talk about embarrassing.
I just remembered another one – me, my sister and one of our friends were convinced we would be on Star Search. Our talent – lip synching to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” wearing leotards, tights, leg warmers and sweatbands. We would practice constantly – even when our friend’s 5 brothers made fun of us incessantly.
I lip-synched “You Might Think I’m Crazy” by The Cars in the fourth grade. I thought of myself as a geek at the time and this was a major boost of confidence. I loved being in front of people and it inspired me to do community theater for years to come. I also lip-synched “Wild Wild West by Escape Club in the seventh grade. It was another awesome experience.
When I was in 7th grade chorus, we were required to either sing or lip-synch a song in front of the whole class. I did Rick Astley’s “Together Forever,” complete with back-up dancers.
God, I am so gay.
Dressed up as the Spice Girls senior year (with four other dudes) and lip synched to “Wannabe.” It was awesome. Also, lip synched to Chubbawumba’s “Tubthumper” for a pledge function at, where else? Dear old Penn State.
In 9th grad we had to lip-synch a song for our TV Production class. So I spent two weeks putting it together – dim lights, nice clothing, you name it. The song? Elton John’s “Rocket Man”.
I thought it was nice. The class thought it was (and I quote) “BOOOOOOORRRRING!!!” Ouch.
So I had to re-do it with Spike Jones’ “You Always Hurt The One You Love.”
I still got a C minus.
My friends I and decided to do an air band to The Spice Girls’ “Spice Up Your Life”…the thing was there was only three of us because we couldn’t get anyone else in that high school to humiliate themselves with us…oh and we did they exact dance routine they used in their concerts…needless to say I am super excited for the reunion tour!
I personally avoided the lip-synching thing– that was out of style by the time I shed my adolescent stage fright. But there are two songs forever associated with the Pleasant View Elementary Talent Show in my mind: the first time I heard R.E.M.’s “Stand” and the Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right (to Party),” it was in the unfortunate circumstance of seeing them acted out and lip-synched by some older (i.e., fifth or sixth grade) boys. To this day, when I hear “Stand,” I picture those guys stomping on little cardboard middle-class homes lining the foot of the stage…
Shout out to D & Odi- fellow Penn Stater!!!
In 4th grade at the school talent (I use that word loosely) show, three of my friends and I performed a lip sync and dance number to Debbie Gibson’s Shake Your Love. The dance portion mainly consisted of us stepping side to side while alternately shaking one fist while the other hand was on our hips. I believe it went something like this, one fist pump for each word – Shake (fist pump) Your (fist pump) Love (fist pump). And switch hands. I (fist pump) Just (fist pump) Can’t (fist pump) Shake (fist pump). Hand switch. Your (fist pump) Love (fist pump). And repeat. I choreographed. I know – I was awesome!
I once won a lip sync contest at my fave bar – I was about 18 – doing Straight Up. My tap teacher at the time broke down then taught me the number Paula does at the beginning of the video before the music starts. The crowd loved it! And my dance studio did a big fund raiser every Halloween at a private residence. One year we all dressed in our finest zombie wear and walked among the guests not speaking. When the music started, we all gathered out back and did the exact moves from Thriller. Didn’t lip sync but MJ-sync’d. Good times!
Oh, this brings back memories! My Girl Scout troop lip-synched “‘Cause I’m a Blonde” from “Earth Girls are Easy” at camp. We all wore blond wigs and stuffed our bras (we were in Jr. High). Probably not the best song for young girls, now that I think about it. It sure was funny, though!
Grade six was a big performance year for me. We had a lip-synching contest in our class and I did Kylie Minogue’s “Locomotion.” It was pretty bad.
But that year, our enriched class went to this McSmartersons-type conference where we broke into groups and had to present some boring research. My group–two guys and me–decided to do a parody of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. (I played their teacher.) We were a huge hit–I think we won a prize. But that didn’t compare to the adulation of hundreds of screaming pre-teens everytime we yelled “Excellent!!”