Karaoke Forums

I play karaoke in a family restaurant/with full bar, open till 1 am wherein kids accompanied by parent or guardian can stay and sing until 10 pm. A whole lot of songs nowadays contain mature lyrics. I tried hard not to let underage kids sing songs in this category, but it’s just not possible to remember all of them, and sometimes, the song has already started, and the parents are looking at me, like saying wtf???

I started tagging these songs 4 months ago with “Rated R/No kids under the age of 16” (space hogger in the book). I really don’t want to do this meticulous process to the cd’s I bought from years back. It will be a nightmare to just play and watch the graphics, or to google/lyrics check on the songs I deemed inappropriate. (Lots from PopHitsMonthly Urban). I would like to put a little sign in front of the book saying the parents are responsible for the songs their kids selected, or words to that effect.

Or maybe you can help me word it out in a tactful, diplomatic way without antagonizing anyone. Thanks!

Unless a venue has a policy on this, then it is up to the parents to what is appropriate for their kids.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Once you've put them in your book, you pretty much screwed yourself. Unless the venue, or yourself have a policy of NO EXPLICIT LYRICS, not much you can do once the cat is out of the bag. Since this is a FAMILY restaurant, I'm surprised there isn't a rule about explicit lyrics. The owner is definately setting himself up to lose ALOT of business. I can see mama, and daddy, and gramma and grampa sitting down to eat with little junior and missy when some little foul mouth jerk picks out the filthiest lyriced song you have and starts belting it out. Heads turn, dad is ready to kick some a$$, gramma and grampa are devistated, they're UP AND OUT of there in less than a heartbeat vowing to NEVER RETURN. No way can this karaoke venue last. You can't have ANYONE just get up and start spouting vulgarities in a FAMILY establishment, whether they're singing them or not.

Rosario
Serenity Now Karaoke

You could try a "Caution: Some songs contain adult content. Parents, please monitor your children's song choices," but that probably won't keep you out of trouble. There are so many different standards from the parents and some will care and some won't.


We do some kid's shows and I have started making kid books, although it is difficult to decide where to draw the line. There are several sites, Clean Sing and www.noplaylist.com that list songs deemed ok for school dances, etc. "No play" rates them by ok for this age, etc. and updates as new songs come out. But even Clean Sing allows a lot of drinking songs and "put a boot in your "a," it's the American Way," etc.

We had a 4 year old kid ask if we had the Scorpion's "Rock You All Night Long," We presume he had no idea what it was about. Sometimes I feel funny "censoring," especially considering everything we listened to when we were young. And I know they listen to it at home. But it is different having it actually come out of their mouths with a bunch of parents around.

Can't wait for Jerry12x to chime in on this.

I deal with this all the time, as I do a regular show at a State Park. There is a very definite no-profanity policy.

If I have any doubt at all, I just ask the kids if there are any bad words in the song. They always tell me, and on the very rare occasions when they have any doubt, they usually they say something like "maybe I'll change my song..."

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Don't know what software you guys are running, but Compuhost does have a rather handy feature. While you're running your show if you see a song with offensive lyrics you can go in to the song listings and check a box that will flag the song as offensive and after that everytime you go to play the song a warning box will come up and let you know the song has offensive lyrics and ask if you are sure you wish to play it. If you stay up on the new songs and gradually work through your older material that actually gets sung during the course of a few karaoke nights that should hopefully eliminate many of the possible issues.

I don't list any song with 'adult' content for my regular bar shows. 99% don't care or miss them.
I did one Jr High grad party a couple years back, I asked (the parents/chaparones - 6 couples) specifically if there was any music that they did not want the kids to have access to, all of their responses were, no, anything goes - 1 went on to say we probably hear them talk worse in their own homes (sad in itself). We only really had 2 songs that had any adult content, Because I Got High & She Hates Me - which were brought by one of the kids as I did not have them listed.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I just did a private party last weekend and I was like being a KJ in Chuck E. Cheese all night. 90% of the singers were kids.

I ended up being a babysitter.. all the kids came in the big barn where the tables and my booth was set up, and most of the adults were outside around the bonfire.

Lots of newer 'Urban' tracks sung by little kids.. couldn't have been any older than 9 or 10.. but many of these songs were what you hear on top 40 radio every day.

Ok.
I recently did a kiddies karaoke at my residency on a Sunday.
A very proud mother approached me with her eight year old daughter.
The audience applauded her for nearly a whole minute.

It was the best "Lily Allen - Not fair" I have ever heard.
Her mother was right to be proud. She was awesome.

I guess there is adult content and profanity.

I guess to an 8 year old, "lying on the wet spot in the middle of the bed" could mean something else but I'm wondering what she thought the rest of it meant.

Not sure she would have wondered.
She worked on the accent.
She sounded just like Lily Allen.

Could be funny when she is old enough to understand.
Remembering what she sang.

When I do shows with kids present, I just announce to the audience a few times that the song books do contain songs with explicit lyrics, to please try to avoid choosing them because I can't remember all the songs that might be inappropriate, and that if singers are up there singing and need to edit the lyrics a little, to please do that. If I have to cut someone off because they weren't courteous to the families present, I apologize to the singer/crowd and help them find a different song.

Kids watch HBO and listen to uncut CDs. It isn't going to hurt them to hear a few bad words. As long as the singers and host are making an effort to have the show be family-friendly, I find that mistakes are tolerated. If some parent got upset about it, I'd suggest they do karaoke with their kids at a different venue or at home.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

I think what you're doing is great, so far. I see your dilemma of it being a space hogger though. Maybe just use "Rated R" instead, or mark them with an asterisk, large R, or color coat them with an explanation at the bottom of the page.

A tent card or explanation in the front of the book is a nice touch too. Those plastic tent cards that you see on tables where you can slide out the paper can sometimes be free if you ask the bar or restaurant owner if they have extras. I've used them before. I love the idea of letting the parents know it is ultimately their responsibility, so you don't have any problems with an angry parent blaming you. Let them know you are in the process of marking all the offensive language songs and that not all are currently marked.

Good luck!

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

Yes, I guess after experiencing a few sleep overs, to an 8 year old, that just means somebody needs to wear a pair of rubber undies to bed. The rest of it, she'll understand after being married for several years, and she'll get used to it.....my wife did, only minus that BS about all that time giving head.....that's pure fantasy.....

I think putting a warning on the books and making an announcement periodically would be sufficient. In my case there is no way I would go through and try to censor my books. Kids know what they are doing and what they are singing most of the time. If they get up there and sing something they shouldn't it's not your fault for having it, the responsibility lies upon the kid and the parents. With the warnings in place you should be fine.

I've had a lot of experience with this actually. First, I have my own database that I built for tracking my songs and generating song books. One of the columns (fields) on the database is a flag to mark it as "adult". I do my best as I add songs to make sure to update that flag whenever necessary but it's not a perfect science. So a while back when I did a show for a middle school fundraiser, I took additional precautions. I did have a few kids come up and request to sing songs that I realized had profane lyrics. All I did was look at the kids and ask them "How many of your teachers are here, are they going to be happy with you singing this song". The look on their faces said it all and they admitted they shouldn't do it and picked a different song.

In your situation where you have more of a mixed crowd, I like your idea of tagging the songs and then possibly including a statement on the front. You're not there to play social police and certainly parents need to be aware of what their kids are up to.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Because I. DJ a fair amount of school dances and have a 12 and 15 year old at home, I make sure I'm familiar with new music. If there's any question, I tell the kids they have to pick something else, and if I'm not sure, I tell the kids they need to be because if I see any profanity or nastiness pop on the screen, the song and their turn is over. Works pretty well. I will not have their parents pissed at me and complaining to management about me because they weren't paying attention to what their kids were doing.

We do a kids' show before our adult show once a month. I tell the kids that if they choose to sing a song that has adult content, that I'd better not be able to hear the offensive word(s). I tell them if I hear it, the song gets turned off and they are done for the night.

Fact is, almost all of the songs that they love (barring Taylor Swift), even M. Cyrus new songs, have adult innuendo. The kids LOVE Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. Funny thing is, now the kids won't even sing "PMS" - that's hilarious to me, but since they don't fully understand what it means, they leave it out for fear that they won't be able to sing again.

Some kids will come up and ask if they can sing a song - I pretty well deny any of the PMH urban stuff because 99% of the time it has questionable content.

Most of the time the parents are laughing because they, more than anyone, know that their kids have NO idea what they're singing...and they let it slide.

Fact is, even at my adult show, if someone wants to sing something of questionable content, I warn people, let them know it isn't something I particularly like, but in the interest of allowing people to sing what they want to sing, I allow it. The exception is Closer...nobody sings it at my show, any time, anywhere. (Someone did Piece of ShXt car the other night and many had never heard it - it got a laugh from everyone that I could see. Sometimes if I feign 'shock' they think that's funny, too.)

Reality is, even 6 year olds are listening to questionable content, even 'clean' versions, on the radio. Interestingly, I have heard a clean version of OMG in which the God is replaced with GOSH.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but that's refreshing to me. Some of my songs have adult content, but it is mostly subtle or double entendre. I do have one song that is about necrophilia, but I sng it in French, and it is a private joke between me and a few friends. Seeing one young tweenager after another, wearing a baseball cap backwards and spewing iambic profanity with no singing talent, is just not entertaining to me.

-denise

Like Tony, I wrote my own database interface with a "notes" section. I mainly use it to put in the song time, key and other notes about the particular track, but have noted adult lyrics too. It would be nice if there was a list of all the songs with the F-bomb that we could refer to instead of finding them by trial and error.

To start the list:

1) Crazy (@$%&#!) - Buckcherry
2) Rodeo Song - Gary Lee & Showdown