Monday, February 02, 2015

You've got a friend in me

Speaking in prison yesterday morning. I wasn't supposed to be but neither of the two people I'd hoped would be speaking were available so they were stuck with me.

I usually get very stressed beforehand but this time I felt calm and relaxed. I mentioned this to our musician while we were waiting to go into prison adding, 'Which probably means I've forgotten something or I don't know what I'm doing.'

It turned out to be the latter. It wasn't that I did anything wrong exactly but I lost confidence and began to stutter and stumble. It wasn't horrendous but I came away feeling 'could have done better.' Nobody said anything critical and one or two of the men thanked me and appreciated my talk but you know how it is: we're always our own worst critics. 

The theme was friends so I had this bright idea that we'd end on a jolly note by singing 'You've got a friend in me' from Toy Story. I printed off the words so we could all join in and we were off.
'You've got a friend in me (sung loudly and heartily)
you've got a friend in me
mutter mutter
mutter mutter
mutter mutter
you've got a friend in me!'

To be fair it's quite a difficult song to sing as it doesn't have a repetitive rhythm and you have to either squash or stretch the words to make them fit - and you have to know when to do which. We won't sing it again but the men took it in the spirit it was meant and left feeling happy (I hope) and, if they're like me, will be singing the first two lines until Thursday at least.


6 comments:

Trubes said...

Well done for going Liz,
you're very brave and charitable to do the work you do, and especially at Zaks, (to many do's methinks) but I'm sure you know what I mean.
love,
Di xx

Furtheron said...

Randy Newman is a clever git - he makes something sound so easy then you go and try it and it is far from that....

I can't see any of our bunch singing like that so well done for getting them to give it a go anyway

Liz Hinds said...

Thanks, Di.

Mr Newman is indeed very talented, Graham.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

It all sounds great fun and I'm sure it went well. x

nick said...

That's often the way isn't it, you think you've made a total mess of something but everyone else seems happy enough or even compliments you. Reminds me of Carole King's You've Got a Friend. I love that song.

Optimistic Existentialist said...

Well done! My admiration for you just grew by leaps and bounds :)