In fifth grade, three other classmates and I were pulled out of the chorus of ninety other fourth and fifth graders and told that we would not be singing in the Christmas pagent because our voices were "bad". After that, I didn't sing anymore, not in class, not in church--when friends and family went carolling, I stayed home.

I learned to play guitar, but only to accompany others. One day, strickly for laughs, an aquaintance and I worked up the Fugs"I Feel Like Homemade Shit" to sing in a Folksong society circle--it was well received, and later someone told me how much fun it had been to hear the song sung seriously, by real singers. I haven't stopped singing since--

Now the thing I wonder is, how much damage could three "bad" voices done in a chorus of 90 elementary school kids at an elementary christmas pagent?