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**Update 6/03/09: If you're looking for samples of the lyric snippets or the games I've pulled together, send me an email or leave a comment here. I'll be glad to help!**
In a nutshell, I make up a list of 20 love songs (this is for a Valentine's Day party, after all) and select a passage with lines that are somewhat memorable. For the first couple of years, this was very easy as I just picked songs that I've always liked. Over the years, I've found that it has gotten harder to come up with songs that have lines that easily lend themselves to this type of game. My guests number around 8-9, and their ages range from early thirties to mid-eighties, so it has been a challenge to select songs that span generations, as well. When choosing the passage, you have to find a good breaking point, which is where the cue ends and your guests have to write down the lyrics that come next. For example, when given "When I get older losing my hair, Many years from now. Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greetings bottle of wine. If I'd been out till quarter to three, would you lock the door..." you would need to answer "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I'm sixty-four." I've been pretty relaxed in the past on how many words they have to write down to get credit. If it seems that they are having a particularly tough time, I've offered bonus points if they can at least name the artist.
Now, I am not a great singer. But do I let that stop me from singing the lead-ins? No way!! I find it rather freeing, as a matter of fact. I figure that my inability to sing on key just adds another layer of challenge to the game. A few of my guests are quite good singers, though, and so they help me out if they recognize the song and sing it properly to the benefit of the others playing the game. Once we have gone through all the songs, we score them together, and everyone sings out the lyrics with great abandon. It's funny, but we just have so much fun doing this. I always award a prize to the person who got the most correct. However, last year, I awarded a prize for second place, as well.
This year, I decided to change things up just a bit. In order to level the playing field between those who know songs across broad spectrums and those whose scope is more limited, I am going to divide the guests into 2 teams - one end of the table versus the other end. Each team will get one sheet of paper and will have to confer amongst themselves to come up with the right lyrics. In addition, I've decided to try using the laptop and actually play the song snippets instead of singing them myself. I know, I know... I hate to give up that post, but it so happens that I have chosen a couple of songs this time that I just would not be able to sing, not even badly. I mean... Whitney Houston. Need I say more? I am slightly afraid that the game might end up being too easy, as a result. BUT... I'm changing one other thing this year, too. Everyone is going to get a prize instead of just one winner. I'm thinking that I'll have the 'losing' team pick one item from a selection of wrapped gifts. Then I'll allow them to open the gifts, but then the 'winners' can choose to swipe one of the unwrapped gifts or choose from the remaining wrapped gifts. We'll see how it goes over! The final touch to making this game memorable, is at the end, I give each guest a CD which has all of the songs on it that were used in the game.
I have two other activities planned, but will go into more detail on those in the next update. I have a few things I need to get ironed out over the weekend, because it's full steam ahead with several things planned to get accomplished each day next week. And I still haven't gone shopping for those exotic ingredients yet!
