This One Time in Glee Club…

When I was in Glee Club in high school I got to be pretty good friends with one of my classmates, a certain Michael Morris, who happened to be an exchange student from the UK.

Michael was a diminutive lad, fair of face and comely in appearance, with his naturally curly hair in tight ringlets; all the girls were quite aflutter. He had that dashing English accent too, of course. And his singing voice was that of an angel.

I don’t know whose idea this was, but our instructor got it into his head that Michael should sing a special song for one of our productions, a song so spectacularly inappropriate by today’s standards, so cringe-tastic, that to this day I can’t imagine why anyone would greenlight such a thing.

Who composed this song? I think it was Michael himself, which would quadruple the cringe factor.

Anyway, I can still remember the song, and its melody, to this day:

🎵 My mother said, “Michael, it’s not nice, 🎵
🎵 To kiss all the girls and cuddle them, 🎵
🎵 Treat them with gentlemanly courtesy, 🎵
🎵 And decorum.” 🎵

At this point our director instructed him to really lean into that English accent:

But it EES nice!
And I LIKE eet!

And now came the rollicking chorus:

🎵 Give me a kiss, a kiss, a kiss, yum yum! 🎵
🎵 A kiss, a kiss, a kiss, yum yum! 🎵
🎵 A kiss, a kiss, a kiss, yum yum! 🎵
🎵 Give me a kiss, a kiss, a kiss! 🎵

I was always a bit of a class clown, so at this point during one of the first rehearsals, I muttered, sotto voce, “No, thanks!”

The class exploded into laughter, but our director stiffened in indignation. “Who said that!?”

Twenty-seven fingers pointed immediately in my direction.

“Well, at least it was a guy,” he grumbled.

Michael’s song was a hit, especially among the distaff set.

One of the myriad girls that took a fancy to young Michael noted that we were friends, and approached me with a brusque command: “Introduce me to Michael!”

“What? I don’t even know you!”

Well, okay. She could fix that. She started flirting with me, “accidentally” dropping things near me so I would helpfully pick them up for her, thus forging a connection between us.

That didn’t work, partly because she was so obvious that I was on to her instantly, and partly because I was too socially awkward to interact with girls in that manner.

The other girls began to giggle at how gloriously her plans were failing, so she soon gave up on this obtuse idiot. I’m sure she found another of Michael’s many other friends to finagle instead.