Mothers, tell your children

A story about one of my weirder gigs:

A friend from work knew I was a magician. He also knew some folks who were getting married and were looking for entertainers for their reception. He asked me to come down for an audition. I agreed.

I showed up at the audition. A number of other people were there. The couple getting married were Vietnamese; I was the only Westerner present. I did my bit, they liked it, I got booked and I hung around. The band (two people; a guitarist/singer and a guy with a keyboard with a number of sampled sounds) was jamming and various people would grab the mike. They came to a song I knew so I figured what the heck.

I'm a pretty good singer. I'm not as good as most professionals but better than your average karaoke singer. When I was done the room erupted! They asked me if I would sing at the wedding as well as do magic. They wanted me to do the song I had just performed. I tried to argue but they would have none of it.

I wasn't arguing out of false modesty. I was arguing over song choice. The song I had arbitrarily grabbed the mike for on that fateful audition? "House of the Rising Sun." That's right, the song I sang at a Vietnamese wedding reception was an American blues number about a boy whose life was ruined because he visited a house of prostitution.

In retrospect, a perfect wedding song.