“Against All Odds”
by Phil Collins
from the album Against All Odds
1984
Buy the album on Amazon

Aaaannndd…I’m back.

There are a couple of reasons I’m going with this song this week. One is that last week on the This American Life podcast, they replayed one of my favorite stories they’ve ever done, about getting advice from Phil Collins on how to write a breakup song (highly recommended listening!). When I first heard it a few years ago, it totally made me respect Phil Collins and especially this song (I hadn’t given him much thought before, except I always chuckled when I thought of an off-color joke I heard once about Susudio). It also made me consider singing this song.

Admittedly, when I finally felt comfortable to try it one night, it wasn’t all that great. For one thing, it was a slightly truncated version, which threw me off, but also, I’m not sure I can actually find the right pitch the way I thought I could.

That didn’t stop me a couple of weeks ago. I was at a lakefront resort with family members, and there was a tiny pub there, and even before we went I had seen on the website that they had karaoke on Friday nights. I went over my myself, and at first no one was even singing. The poor karaoke machine was just in a corner being lonely while regular music played and the baseball game was on the tv. I of course started looking through the book immediately, but wasn’t quite sure how to get things started. I even texted Lance for encouragement. I finally convinced a couple of other family members to come over, and then I kicked it off. This wasn’t the first song I did, and it was probably the worst one I did (out of 3), but still – if there is a lonely karaoke machine in the middle of nowhere, I will give it love.

P.S. I had no idea this was from a movie, or that such a movie existed.