ONE

Johnny grabbed the microphone even though he was only the bass player and started singing a version of that song by JLS. He was the latest addition to the band but he had an arrogance that was un-beffitting the usual etiquette of ‘last one in’. He made us change our name to Yelps. Not even with a ‘The’. I’d never been in a non-The band before. The others were sat on their amps, smoking and I was behind the kit, sticks poised. We were in a circle facing inwards and as Johnny reached the chorus he gave a little wink to the others and they all sang:

“EVERYBODY IN YELPS, PUT YOUR HANDS UP, EVERYBODY IN YELPS GO PUT YOUR HANDS UP!”

and they were all laughing and giggling and putting up their hands and I thought it was reasonably fun at least so I swayed along and put down a kick drum and sang along with them and put my hands up. The moment I did this, they all stopped and looked at me. I stopped the kick and looked at them, baffled at the sudden silence. Johnny said the following words to me over the fucking microphone:

“Uh, Lee, why have you got your hands up?”