For those of you who know me, you know what's coming. For those of you who don't know me, you must be really confused.
On the night of January 26, 2013, I participated in a lip sync competition at my high school. This is a recap of the night.
Side Note: I apologize for the blurriness of the video. When I gave the camera to my brother (the cameraman), all settings were set to manual. He didn't know how to change them.
First up: Nick Berry. A Junior, Nick entered into this year as the overwhelming crowd favorite. He had entered the past two competitions. Here is his 2012 performance. I was looking forward to his performance as much as anyone. Something y'all have to understand is that his performances are not so well known for the technical skill or rhythm. You know why we all love him? He. Is. Nick. Berry. You won't understand... I'm sorry. One thing you MUST know about his performances: when he runs at the wall and jumps, that is the best part. The crowd is not crazy. It's just Nick being awesome. Enjoy.
What? That was an amazing performance! You know it! Ugh. Only those who know Nick would love it.
Following that STELLAR performance by Nick Berry (I will never stop praising that performance), the first group of Senior guys performed a mash-up of popular songs.
Next: a group of Senior girls doing One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful"
Now comes the time of reckoning, what will define me in the minds of some for the next year (or decade, but hopefully not). But... to stall a bit... some background on the performance. Three years ago was one of the most legendary lip sync performances ever. It was a group of three Sophomore guys singing Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA." Their unison was horrible. The choreography was simple. Any semblance of a common dress code was non-existent. What they did have going for them: it was cheesy, it was funny, and above all, it was extremely entertaining. They ended up winning that year.
Flash forward to this year. Our class has never had very good luck in lip sync competitions. The previous two years, we fielded one guy group. Our Sophomore group copied one of the year's previous performances. Our Junior year attempt tried to rick-roll the school while lip-syncing Justin Bieber. I was in neither of them. Usually the group was put together a week before the competition and scrambled to get the choreography and lyrics done. We never placed. This year, things changed. More Seniors felt brave enough to take on the lip sync competition and we ended up fielding three groups.
For a couple months before the competition, I toyed with the idea of making a group. First, what to lip sync? After a week or two of brainstorming, I thought back to a classmate in Home Ec first semester. He had played a Taylor Swift song that I sang in falsetto to annoy him. That song was "Never Ever Getting Back Together." I pitched the idea to some friends. Starting off, I hoped one of them would be willing to take the lead or use my idea to start their own group. After bouncing the ideas off friends, I chose to blaze my own path. I asked friends if they wanted to participate. In the end, two boarded the Taylor train.
At this point, it was two weeks before the competition. We came up with moves for the verses but couldn't think of anything for the choruses. As we all know, when we can't come up with dance moves, we turn to YouTube. After searching the interwebs for an hour, we settled on using Taylor's performance in Rio de Janeiro and her DWTS performance. The Rio version is used for the first two choruses and the DWTS version is used in the last two. From there, it was just practice, practice, practice. As we practiced, we watched the "Party in the USA" video for inspiration (and sheer entertainment... more of the latter). We practiced during study hall in a back hallway. Occasionally, people would walk by our dance floor. When this happened, we would stare at them awkwardly then continue lip syncing T-Swizzle.
Finally, it was the day of. We were listed as the last act. Just a few days earlier, we had found out that the other Senior guys' act used part of our song. We were afraid it would take away some of our thunder. We thought about going before them, but the lip sync coordinator had faith that our act would end lip sync night on a good note.
*sigh* I can't keep this stalling thing up forever. Without further ado, I give you... Taylor Swift's "Never Ever Getting Back Together" as lip synced by three senior guys.
Best Wishes! -Richie a.k.a. "T-Swizzle"