This one goes out to the one I love...

The Boston Globe on karaoke, a new book on the subject, and what our urge to sing others' songs in public says about us...

You can say, for example, that ours is a karaoke age, in which the arts of mimicry and simulation are more esteemed than originality or sincerity, and the retread preferred to the real thing. You can say that in the trash democracy of global pop culture, where the anonymous soul has been replaced by the undiscovered star and the celebrity-in-waiting, it is karaoke that has ritualized the emergence of this inner performer. And you can talk about tribute bands, "American Idol," and so on.
None of this, however, will get you near the true nature of karaoke. Deeply awful at times, even sordid, it is never less than interesting -- and it can be revelatory. I once saw a friend of mine do Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak" at the Courtside Pub in Cambridge, and I've never been able to look at him the same way again. At the instant that he sang "See the boys and me mean business . . ." he became legendary to me.

My stand-by karaoke song is Melissa Ethridge's "Angels Would Fall."