Join Choir! Choir! Choir! for a Community Singalong in Isolation

I love ya, and I think maybe if we sing togeth­er, well, we’d just feel a lit­tle bit bet­ter. Give it a try, okay? —Neil Dia­mond

Thus quoth singer-song­writer Neil Dia­mond on March 23, before launch­ing into his sur­pris­ing­ly stur­dy mon­ster hit, “Sweet Car­o­line,” hav­ing reworked its lyrics to pro­mote hand-wash­ing and social dis­tanc­ing to help con­trol the spread of COVID-19.

He’s not wrong about the ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits of group singing. Dit­to the imper­a­tive to resist gath­er­ing pub­licly, or even in the homes of extend­ed fam­i­ly and close friends, until this cri­sis is in the rear view.

Choir! Choir! Choir!, an ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ty sing that’s attained glob­al renown thanks to its fre­quent tours, char­i­ta­ble work, and the sup­port of such star­ry per­son­ages as Pat­ti Smith and David Byrne, has had to put the kibosh on live group events. (Check out their 2014 sin­ga­long of Dia­mond’s “Sweet Car­o­line,” above, for a taste of the pro­ceed­ings.)

With every­one stay­ing home, founders Nobu Adil­man and Dav­eed Gold­man quick­ly imple­ment­ed a dig­i­tal work around, invit­ing fans and first-timers alike to week­ly online sing-ins.

Their next Social Dis­tan-Sing-Along is com­ing up this Sat­ur­day, April 4th at 3pm EDT, fea­tur­ing a camp­fire-themed playlist:

“The Weight”

“Blowin’ In The Wind”

“Our House”

“Leav­ing On A Jet Plane”

“Redemp­tion Song”

“Talkin Bout A Rev­o­lu­tion”

“Dust In The Wind”

“Cats In The Cra­dle”

“Wild World”

(Sad­ly, no “Titan­ic,” but per­haps that one’s more sum­mer camp than camp­fire, and these days, it’s prob­a­bly best to side­step any num­ber, no mat­ter how sil­ly, that springs from mass casu­al­ties…)

Par­tic­i­pants are instruct­ed to print a file of the song lyrics in advance and show up to the dig­i­tal camp­fire (live stream­ing on YouTube or Face­book) with a cou­ple of devices—enough to fol­low along with Adil­man and Gold­man, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly Zoom­ing in any friends you’ve pre-arranged to sing with.

(With 1000s attend­ing, one of Choir! Choir! Choir!’s usu­al joys—lift­ing one’s voice with a vast cho­rus of most­ly strangers—is a logis­ti­cal and tech­no­log­i­cal impos­si­bil­i­ty.)

Par­tic­i­pants are also encour­aged to share footage of them­selves singing along, using the hash­tag #Nev­er­StopSing­ing—though we remind our non-per­for­mance-ori­ent­ed read­ers that this is mere­ly a sug­ges­tion.

Choir! Choir! Choir in iso­la­tion may well attract show­er Sina­tras who’d nev­er dream of open­ing their mouths at an in-per­son event.

It’s a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty for the vocal­ly shy to become part of one of the biggest choirs in his­to­ry, secure in the knowl­edge that the only peo­ple to hear them croak­ing away will be the cat, the dog, any human co-inhab­i­tants… and, oh dear, what about neigh­bors in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty?

Don’t wor­ry about the neigh­bors. In fact, prick up your ears—you may hear them singing the exact same tunes.

To get you in the mood, here are some of our favorites from Choir! Choir! Choir!’s clas­sic playlist:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ital­ians’ Night­ly Sin­ga­longs Prove That Music Soothes the Sav­age Beast of Coro­n­avirus Quar­an­tine & Self-Iso­la­tion

65,000 Fans Break Into a Sin­ga­long of Queen’s “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” at a Green Day Con­cert in London’s Hyde Park

Good Med­i­cine: The Band’s Clas­sic Song, “The Weight,” Sung by Rob­bie Robert­son, Ringo Starr & Spe­cial Guests from Around the World

Pat­ti Smith Sings “Peo­ple Have the Pow­er” with a Choir of 250 Fel­low Singers

Bri­an Eno Lists the Ben­e­fits of Singing: A Long Life, Increased Intel­li­gence, and a Sound Civ­i­liza­tion

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Like Choir! Choir! Choir!, she has been crowd­sourc­ing art in iso­la­tion, most recent­ly a hasti­ly assem­bled trib­ute to the clas­sic 60s social line dance, The Madi­son. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.