Reasons I shouldn’t be allowed to play music on a jukebox

“WHO THE F*CK PLAYED THE DOOBIE BROTHERS??"

A guy I didn’t know yelled this at a bar I was at. I gulped.

It was me. I played the Doobie Brothers.

And up until that moment, I had been singing, “Woooah, listen to the music! Ohh wooah wooaaah!”

But I didn’t own up to my music selection. Quite the opposite - I bent down under the bar to hide “look for something” in my purse.

The guy didn’t ask the question again, thank GOD, but he made a lot of noise pushing his stool back from the bar, and then he left the bar.

Left the bar!!!!

How could such a happy band make him so angry?? It was confusing.

…and that’s why I don’t play The Doobie Brothers on jukeboxes anymore.

Haha

But the bright side was that at least he didn’t pull the cord out of the wall. Because that happened to me once, too.

Oh yes. I got the cord pulled on me.

(Uh...maybe I shouldn't be allowed to play music on jukeboxes anymore.)

I take full responsibility for the unplugging incident.

I was with my roommate, we were drunk and we thought it would be funny to play “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”at a dive bar.

…in the middle of July.

“Why else would they have this off-season album in here? For us to play it of course!” we reasoned. We put in a dollar.

We did NOT think about the old men who were drinking alone in the bar, and how they might not want to hear a Christmas song. In July.

“Uh-uh!” said an old man disapprovingly as the song started and my roommate and I started dancing in front of the machine.

It turned out the man was a regular, and his displeasure got the bartender to walk over to the wall and unplug the jukebox. Just like that.

All the men clapped and cheered. We stood there wide-mouthed.

“WHAT, NO CHRISTMAS IN JULY??” My roommate yelled.

No one responded. We left immediately.

I'm pretty sure they clapped and cheered after we left, too.

Aside from that extreme example, I'm sorry, but it really IS hard to play music for a crowd and make everyone happy.

For one thing, people are very adamant about the music that they hate and aren’t afraid to say it and/or remove themselves from the bar.

Also, there’s a cool factor to what music you play for people. It’s got to be catchy and not annoying and usually musicians under 30 are a DON’T. (Ke$ha)

But, you can’t play anything too old either, so even though I’d REALLY like to play “Walking in Memphis” I don’t want to be called a dork.

I know I can just go ahead and not care what people think, but hahaha come on. I’m way too neurotic for that.

No, moving forward I will take these very important lessons with me: No Christmas music in July. Actually, no Christmas music at all on a jukebox.

And no f*cking Doobie Brothers.

-Jenny