\n<\/p>\n
In high school, I joined Rebel Yell, an a cappella group named after the Billy Idol song<\/a>. I mostly beatboxed or sang background vocals. But one year, my chorus teacher gave me a lead vocal.<\/p>\n It was on a song called \u201cInsomniac,\u201d by a folk rock duo called Billy Pilgrim. Our audiences didn\u2019t know the song before we sang it. None of us did, which made it an odd choice for contemporary a cappella, where most of the songs performed are big hits. I didn\u2019t realize until years later that groups <\/em>all across the country were singing this song, without knowing anything about the original version.<\/p>\n But why?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Two students at Emory University, Kristian Bush and Andrew Hyra, formed Billy Pilgrim in the early 1990s, and their self-titled major record label debut came in 1994. \u201cInsomniac\u201d was released as a single, but never charted. The band, named for the lead character in the Kurt Vonnegut Jr. novel \u201cSlaughterhouse-Five,\u201d didn\u2019t collect much acclaim either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The duo stopped playing together in 2000. Bush formed Sugarland with Jennifer Nettles, and his music career took off. Hyra became a carpenter.<\/p>\n However, the strangest thing happened with \u201cInsomniac.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It took on a life of its own. For almost three decades, the song has been a staple of a cappella groups all over the country at all levels, whether high school, colleges, professional groups or otherwise.<\/p>\n Go on YouTube, and you\u2019ll find countless performances of the song through the years. A sampling: The professional group Straight No Chaser<\/a>. Ow! at Glenbrook North High School<\/a>. Section 8 at Ohio University<\/a>.<\/p>\n Amid the roster of popular songs typically selected by a cappella groups, \u201cInsomniac\u201d stands out as an unusual favorite. Alex Kaplan, a 20-year-old junior at Wesleyan University, said he performed the song with his group<\/a>, the Wesleyan Spirits, \u201ca couple days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon for the occasional song to sort of gain a foothold in the a cappella community if it\u2019s got particular qualities that lend themselves well to performance,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201c\u2018Insomniac\u2019 is a weird one because it\u2019s, with maybe one or two exceptions, just about the most unknown song that I\u2019ve seen multiple a cappella groups do.\u201d<\/p>\n It is a melancholy, guitar-driven love song, with lines like, \u201cI can hear your bare feet on the kitchen floor\/I don\u2019t have to have these dreams no more.\u201d<\/p>\n The recording begins with a wailing Hammond organ and the middle of the song has a musical interlude, which extends into a jam of sorts. Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls sings background vocals on the Billy Pilgrim version.<\/p>\n \u201cI was looking for a girlfriend,\u201d Bush, the song\u2019s writer, said.<\/p>\n The path for \u201cInsomniac\u201d becoming ubiquitous in the a cappella world began before the record was even released.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the early 1990s, a cappella \u2014 singing without instrumental accompaniment, with the sheer power of the human voice \u2014 was changing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Groups like Rockapella and the Nylons were ushering in a new mainstream approach, different from the traditional barbershop quartet style of many predominantly white male groups of the time. This newer style of performance meant that every instrument on a given song was accounted for. Drums would be represented by beatboxing, guitar strums and piano chords represented by rhythmic vocal approximations.<\/p>\n Deke Sharon, an a cappella-obsessed student at Tufts University, also helped pioneer the shift, particularly on college campuses. As musical director for the Beelzebubs, the Tufts group, he encouraged previously unperformed arrangements of pop songs. After graduating in 1991, Sharon aimed to make a career spreading the gospel of a cappella.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/em>Everybody laughed,\u201d he said. They said, \u201cYou can\u2019t make a career out of a cappella,\u2019\u201d but he said he told them: \u201cIt\u2019s so wonderful. If people only knew, they would literally fall in love.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There wasn\u2019t much recorded a cappella before that, except for occasional exceptions like Bobby McFerrin\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Be Happy\u201d<\/a> or the Huey Lewis and the News cover of \u201cIt\u2019s Alright.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Sharon formed a nonprofit called the Contemporary A Cappella Society, with the aim of popularizing this new, more modern form of vocalizing through a cappella festivals, awards shows and networking events for enthusiasts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He also had an idea. Back then, college groups had no way of spreading their music beyond campuses. There was no YouTube or Spotify. The web had yet to arrive, and even email was uncommon.<\/p>\n Using a meticulously crafted database of groups that he had compiled in his dorm room, Sharon started taking submissions for \u201cBest Of College A Cappella\u201d compilation albums<\/a>. Groups that made the cut would be on a compact disc that they could sell at shows. They could buy them from for $5 and sell them at shows for $15. Suddenly, a performance from, say, Rutgers University, could be available at Boston College.<\/p>\n It was around this time that John Craig Fennell, a graduate student at the University of Virginia, joined the Virginia Gentlemen, an all-male offshoot of the Virginia Glee Club. Working at a summer camp in New Jersey, a co-worker handed him the newly released Billy Pilgrim debut.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/em>You hear those first few squeezebox notes on the Billy Pilgrim track,\u201d Fennell said. \u201cI love it. it was immediately compelling.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He saw an opportunity to take advantage of the shift in a cappella and stretch the abilities of the Virginia Gentlemen. He painstakingly transcribed the arrangement by hand \u2014 how most arranging was done back then \u2014 with voices emulating the sounds of the guitar and organ: \u201cJUM-BUH-DUH, JUM-BUH-DUH.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The arrangement marked one the first times that all 14 members of the Virginia Gentlemen had their own vocal part on a song, he said.<\/p>\n They submitted their recording to Sharon, who liked it enough to put it on one of the first \u201cBest Of College A Cappella\u201d albums in the mid-1990s<\/a>.<\/p>\n From there, the record hit campuses and the arrangement began to spread the old-fashioned way: word of mouth.<\/p>\n Other groups copied the arrangement by ear. A member of the Wesleyan Spirits who had performed a version in high school brought it to the Spirits. That arrangement made its way to the Vineyard Sound<\/a>, a group based on Martha\u2019s Vineyard. Similar arrangements were performed at the University of Rochester<\/a> and Plymouth State.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c<\/em>This song is what made me fall in love with my group,\u201d Michelle Shankar, who was part of the Dartmouth Dodecaphonics from 2008 to 2012<\/a>, said. \u201cThey open almost every show with this piece. It\u2019s high energy, super upbeat, at least the a cappella version of it is. And it just starts with this wall of sound \u2014 that really high belt that\u2019s like, \u2018Whoaaa!\u2019<\/em>, and that just became an iconic line.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Many of the singers interviewed about the song could not help but sing a few bars, unprompted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a perfect storm that is specific to \u2018Insomniac,\u2019\u201d Walter Chase, a founding member of Straight No Chaser, said.<\/p>\n Chase arranged a version<\/a> after hearing it off the compilation album for the group in the mid-1990s, when it was still a college group at Indiana University: \u201cWhen you\u2019re a college student and one of the main purposes you do a cappella for is to sing for girls, to get attention and to be able to croon, the soloists\u2019 material is this very heady love song.\u201d<\/p>\n On an annual retreat in Atlanta around 2000, the Wesleyan Spirits performed the song at a bar during the day. The bartender informed the group that it just so happened that Bush, the song\u2019s writer, happened to be performing that same night. The Spirits returned that evening and Bush invited the group onstage to sing his song.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember trying to play it, and it was very square,\u201d Bush said, laughing. \u201cYou can\u2019t really play guitar to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Still, Bush and Hyra had little awareness of the niche hit they had created. Hyra first realized it about a decade ago when he was sitting at a hotel in Martha\u2019s Vineyard with his family, including his sister, the actress Meg Ryan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Vineyard Sound were nearby and began to sing \u201cInsomniac.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018Holy cow!\u2019\u201d Hyra said.<\/p>\n Ryan, who still calls herself Billy Pilgrim\u2019s No. 1 fan, said she couldn\u2019t believe her ears.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a singer, but I can always sing along with that song,\u201d the actress said. \u201cThey always seem to write these songs that kind of give poetry to something very universal.\u201d<\/p>\n With the help of movies like \u201cPitch Perfect\u201d and the former NBC show \u201cThe Sing-Off,\u201d a cappella has gone more mainstream. Production values are higher, and transcription is easier using software. But the Virginia Gentlemen\u2019s arrangement of \u201cInsomniac\u201d remains a constant.<\/p>\n Billy Pilgrim reunited during the pandemic. The band has never made any money off the covers, but the song\u2019s spread has left them elated. At concerts, \u201cInsomniac\u201d is their most requested song, Bush said. They even perform a new version<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe that song should have been a big hit,\u201d Hyra says.<\/p>\n Bush finds the whole phenomenon delightful.<\/p>\n \u201cThe music business is a whole series of \u2018You\u2019re already failing,\u2019\u201d he said, adding, \u201cEvery once in a while, something shows up and it ties a little balloon to your belt loop and suddenly you\u2019re a little lighter, you know? And I think that\u2019s what this does for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n