How a Pornstar Opens Her Throat
by Harper the Fox, author of Wandering Lust
There I was– huge headphones over my ears, a microphone in front of my face, and a song to sing which I barely knew.
The first episode of our new podcast needed finishing, and I was up to bat to perform the ever-living shit out of the song which finishes the episode. My glorious and multi-talented partner, Max, had worked hard to put together the backing track in its entirety. He wrote the melody, and did all the audio editing for the rest of the episode. It was time for my final job, and I was prepared to kick ass.
So, sitting in my rolling chair, with excellent posture and a smile on my face– I got started.
To capture the final recording, I listened to the backing track on an endless loop, and recorded myself singing each verse over and over. I closed my eyes and attempted to summon the spirit of Dolly Parton. I felt my twin braids swing over my chest and imagined myself as a strange version of Willie Nelson with a big set of titties. When I felt myself getting tense, I would stop everything and wiggle. I’d yip into the microphone, make siren sounds, make muppet sounds. Anything to shake the tension from my chest. Then, I’d circle back to the song, loose and smiling.
To be clear– the song I was working so hard to perform well is about a porno. It’s inspired by the first taboo (aka, pretend family-fucking) video which Max and I ever made, and which got extremely popular quite by accident. People love it. In the video, Max (the virgin brother) finds me (the slutty sister) masturbating. He watches her in secret, then is discovered, then… yadda yadda yadda… we bang. And now, years later, we have written a song commemorating this absurd story.
In the end, I recorded for about 16 minutes to capture a 3-minute song. I’m pretty happy with the finished product. There are certainly things I would like to do better next time, and I am determined to become a better, more-relaxed singer than I am today.
I have a battalion of online vocal coaches in my corner (though they don’t know it), helping me to sing even better ridiculous songs about things people masturbate to.
This is the task which is my charge, and I intend to kick ass.
-Harper the Fox