VOCAL REST

I wrote “Berkowitz-Kumin,” a song about the local funeral home:

I went down to Berkowitz-Kumin
To see my baby there
They said I could not view her
No open casket
It’s a Jewish affair.

[Please click on the video to continue.]

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Please see the post below too. It’s probably new to you.
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Yiddishe Cup plays at The Ark, Ann Arbor, Mich. 8 pm Sat., Feb. 4.

CLOSED CAPTION.  Here is what the man in the video is saying, more or less, prior to playing “Berkowitz-Kumin”:

I took up singing. That injured me.  Anybody can sing, but I got a sore throat.  I wanted to perform the song “Berkowitz-Kumin,”  about the local Jewish funeral home.  It was a parody on “St. James Infirmary.”

The song bombed when I sang it at a nursing home.  Worse, I strained my vocal cords.

I could hardly talk for three weeks.  My wife, Alice, thought I was stonewalling her. About the only thing I said was “I don’t want to hose down the garage.”

She insisted I make a doctor’s appointment, which I did and cancelled. I bought mounds of cough drops.

Alice said the cough drops would clog my throat.  They helped. Tea worked too.  The Internet advised me not to talk at all for two full days.

The first day I sat through two family breakfasts. The first breakfast was at an Ann Arbor restaurant with my younger son, an undergrad, and the second was at a pancake house in Toledo with my older son, a law student. My sons didn’t talk.  They never do.  My wife carried the ball. (First down, Alice.  The Ann Arbor restaurant, Benny’s, was near the stadium.)

I went to a party.  I brought a bag of cough drops and a bottle of water.  I said, “What are you up to?”  That’s all I had to say.

And if anybody asked, How’s the band?, I said, “Still Playing. What else are you up to?”

That was my vocal rest.

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