From Weird Al to…well…Weird Al, song parodies are a popular pastime for anyone weird who happens to also be called Al. The man has created a staggering body of work and has made fun of some of the finest pop songs, from Beat It (Eat It), to Pretty Fly For White Guy (Pretty Fly For A Rabbi).
While these songs may seem like silly nonsense upon first listen, there is a very distinct science behind the creation of a parody song. The rhymes have to conform to predetermined set of parameters in order to ensure cohesion. In other words, there are staple words in every song that can be inserted. As a man of science, with a demented psyche that always tries to think of alternative lyrics to any song I listen to, I have come up with a standard blueprint for any parody song. These are easy rhyming words along with substitutions, and a few examples on how to use them. You are welcome to add your own, or create entire songs using my parameters.
YOU -> POO
“You” is a common word that has no end of rhymes, but my favourite for parody purposes is to substitute it with the word “poo”. This makes Phil Collins songs sound like a German sex den:
“When I’m feeling blue, all I have to do, is take a look at poo, then I’m not so blue”
Or we can go for a power ballad:
“And IIIIIIIIIIIII will always love poooooo!”
The possibilities for this substitution are endless, and always hilarious. You can make your favourite pop singers sound like scat enthusiasts with minimum effort.
BABY -> GRAVY
To grasp the scope of this one, just think of how many songs there are out there that include the word “baby”. This is the word of choice for any loved-up pop song. With this simple switcharoo, you can turn any lovey-dovey ballad into a gastronomic groove. We all know that food-based parody songs are the best. Just take this popular Justin Beiber track:
“Gravy, gravy, gravy, ooh!”
Or perhaps a bit of Ace Of Base with their smash hit:
“All that she wants is a little gravy”
Or even a little bit of The Supremes:
“My gravy love, my gravy love”
There are more permutations here than a superhero ensemble.
PIE -> DIE
A lot of musicians are so passionate that they often threaten to die over trivial matters. While we sometimes wish they would, it can actually provide some amusing song parodies. Simply switch out “die” for “pie” and watch the whole meaning of the song change shape. For example take this Bryan Adams song. Combining this with the earlier YOU->POO switch, we can come up with something quite special:
“Yeah, I would fight for you, I'd lie for poo,
Walk the wire for you, yeah, I'd eat pie for poo.
You know it's true:
Everything I do, oh, I do it for poo.”
Don’t tell me that song parodies aren’t worth fighting for. Anyway, I’ll hand the reigns over to you, my wonderful readers. Can you suggest any?
Showing posts with label Song. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Song. Show all posts
Friday, 6 December 2013
Friday, 10 August 2012
Song Dissection
Have you ever listened to a song, then realised that the lyrics are utter nonsense? I have. In fact, I've noticed a startling trend that most artists seem to be talking out of their arse. I understand that some of it can be attributed to artistic expression, but shouldn't our music at least be coherent? Here’s an example of a particularly bad case, KT Tunstall’s Suddenly I See:
Let’s dissect this song and discover the levels of inexplicable gibberish hidden within:
Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
- So I can throw away my road atlas and my GPS, and instead use a photograph of KT Tunstall for all my navigational needs? Google Earth are probably trying to harness the power of her face in order to get live traffic data and up to the minute travel news.
You can see she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
- That silver pool sounds like leaking Mercury if you ask me. I wouldn’t leave that unattended.
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
- That’ll be the Mercury poisoning.
She holds you captivated in her palm
- And she’s a giant?
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
- Yeah, because Mercury-shitting giants make fantastic role models...
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
I feel like walking the world
Like walking the world
- When I first heard this song, I misheard this lyric as “I feel like walking to work”. My version makes a lot more sense as it’s a much shorter distance. I don’t know how she expects to cross the oceans on foot, but good luck to her.
You can hear she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
- Christ, now KT reckons you can actually listen to someone’s appearance. In fact, I have the same problem when I meet hot women. “I’m sorry? I can’t hear you over your radiant beauty!”
She fills up every corner like she's born in black and white
- It would appear that she hasn’t been born in glorious Technicolor like the rest of us. Also, “fills up every corner” suggests that she has similar properties to a liquid. Poor black and white liquid baby.
Makes you feel warmer when you're trying to remember
What you heard
She likes to leave you hanging on her word
- Words are not solid enough to cling onto. This is ludicrous.
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
And she's taller than most
- This supports the giant theory
And she's looking at me
I can see her eyes looking from a page in a magazine
- That’s a bit freaky. I’m guessing that she went to the doctors to find out why she’s a giant, poison-emitting, uncoloured, liquid beast. While she was in the waiting room, her eyes fell out and rolled into the reading material. KT later found those peepers in a copy of Good Housekeeping.
Oh she makes me feel like I could be a tower
A big strong tower
- Yes, inspirational people make me feel like a defensive building too. David Attenborough makes me feel like an army barracks, and Usain Bolt makes me want to be an aircraft hangar.
She got the power to be
The power to give
The power to see
- And yet, people are still waiting for Jesus to return?
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
This is what I wanna be
Suddenly I see (Suddenly I see)
Why the hell it means so much to me
Well that was a rabbit hole big enough to fit a whole asylum in. As you can see, this is clear evidence that KT Tunstall should be sectioned, or at least restrained in some manner when appearing in public. I hope this has been illuminating.
~~~Editors Note~~~
Hi. I know I don’t often talk to you candidly on here, but I’d really appreciate your feedback on this. I really enjoyed writing this post and I’d like to make this song dissection theme a semi-regular feature. If you could spare a couple of minutes to let me know what you thought of it, I would be eternally grateful. Remember, you don’t need a Blogger account to comment, so feel free to comment anonymously. Alternatively, email me at addman_00@hotmail.com. Thanks.
Friday, 16 December 2011
Christmas Number 1: Soldier WAGs
After years of Simon Cowell’s X Factor minions dominating the music charts around the festive season, 2011 finally looks like the year that will break the mould (excluding 2009 when people went out and bought Rage Against The Machine in protest).
But who is likely to cause this buck in trend? Is it going to be another rebellious song in the form of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit? Perhaps Matt Berry’s crowd sourced charity single? Or maybe grannies nationwide are flocking to buy Cliff Richard’s song? In fact, does he even have a song this year? Stupid question, he has one every year.
The answer to all of these is “No”, followed by “You stupid titbox”, and a slap to the back of the head. The correct answer of course, is a choir made up of soldier WAGs.
Otherwise known as “The Military Wives Choir”, these army-marrying ladies have released a single called “Wherever You Are” which contains lines from poems and letters to their Afghanistan-bound hubbies and men folk. Awww. What a lovely sentiment. Although, it strikes me that they could have just sent some letters and poems through the post instead. Topping the music charts doesn’t seem like the most cost effective way of communicating with a loved one in another country. Plus, it means that everyone else has to listen to their dreadful singing.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I don’t dislike charity. I actually work for one myself (admittedly for money), so it would be rather hypocritical of me to denounce charitable giving, especially during the festive season. But what happened to putting money in a donation box, or stealing someone’s credit card and pledging money to Comic Relief with it? Why is it that people only put their hand in their pocket for some contrived sentimental bullshit from a bunch of talentless people with a sob story? I believe a cut of the profits from this sickly sweet sentiment is to go towards the British Legion and institutions such as this.
Is the idea to make us feel sorry for these women? Naturally, soldiers do a difficult job and their other halves are going to miss them during Christmas. But the thing you have to remember is that these soldiers do the job VOLUNTARILY. They’ve not been conscripted; they’ve chosen to run around the desert shooting at people for Christmas. That’s fine, if that’s what they’re good at, then they can fill their boots, just don’t try and guilt trip me into buying music off the back of it. Frankly, I’d rather buy a hundred CDs of Little Mix’s single and pin them to a jumpsuit.
When the winner is finally announced, it’ll probably be Little Mix rather than the Military Wives Choir anyway, simply because of the viewing audiences. The Military Wives choir was formed by conductor for hire, Gareth Malone for the BBC reality show, The Choir. Despite its growing popularity, the show only pulled in around 3 million viewers as opposed to X Factor’s 10 million (the kind of figures that make you want to kill everyone, starting with yourself).
Whatever happens this Christmas, I implore you not to buy any music. The vast majority of it is downright atrocious or is a 20 year old grunge classic that you already own. In fact, boycott music altogether, including Christmas jingles. If you hear any jingle bells, rip them off of whatever reindeer they’ve been sewn onto, and eat them in protest. That’ll teach ‘em.
But who is likely to cause this buck in trend? Is it going to be another rebellious song in the form of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit? Perhaps Matt Berry’s crowd sourced charity single? Or maybe grannies nationwide are flocking to buy Cliff Richard’s song? In fact, does he even have a song this year? Stupid question, he has one every year.
 |
| The huanting face of Christmas present |
The answer to all of these is “No”, followed by “You stupid titbox”, and a slap to the back of the head. The correct answer of course, is a choir made up of soldier WAGs.
Otherwise known as “The Military Wives Choir”, these army-marrying ladies have released a single called “Wherever You Are” which contains lines from poems and letters to their Afghanistan-bound hubbies and men folk. Awww. What a lovely sentiment. Although, it strikes me that they could have just sent some letters and poems through the post instead. Topping the music charts doesn’t seem like the most cost effective way of communicating with a loved one in another country. Plus, it means that everyone else has to listen to their dreadful singing.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I don’t dislike charity. I actually work for one myself (admittedly for money), so it would be rather hypocritical of me to denounce charitable giving, especially during the festive season. But what happened to putting money in a donation box, or stealing someone’s credit card and pledging money to Comic Relief with it? Why is it that people only put their hand in their pocket for some contrived sentimental bullshit from a bunch of talentless people with a sob story? I believe a cut of the profits from this sickly sweet sentiment is to go towards the British Legion and institutions such as this.
 |
| If you love soldiers so much, why don't you marry them?! |
Is the idea to make us feel sorry for these women? Naturally, soldiers do a difficult job and their other halves are going to miss them during Christmas. But the thing you have to remember is that these soldiers do the job VOLUNTARILY. They’ve not been conscripted; they’ve chosen to run around the desert shooting at people for Christmas. That’s fine, if that’s what they’re good at, then they can fill their boots, just don’t try and guilt trip me into buying music off the back of it. Frankly, I’d rather buy a hundred CDs of Little Mix’s single and pin them to a jumpsuit.
When the winner is finally announced, it’ll probably be Little Mix rather than the Military Wives Choir anyway, simply because of the viewing audiences. The Military Wives choir was formed by conductor for hire, Gareth Malone for the BBC reality show, The Choir. Despite its growing popularity, the show only pulled in around 3 million viewers as opposed to X Factor’s 10 million (the kind of figures that make you want to kill everyone, starting with yourself).
Whatever happens this Christmas, I implore you not to buy any music. The vast majority of it is downright atrocious or is a 20 year old grunge classic that you already own. In fact, boycott music altogether, including Christmas jingles. If you hear any jingle bells, rip them off of whatever reindeer they’ve been sewn onto, and eat them in protest. That’ll teach ‘em.
Monday, 27 April 2009
Holding Out For A Hero, or something
Where has the security gone
When terror's all around?
Towel heads are coming here
To bomb the London Underground
Who is gonna plunder
Foreign oil depositories?
Late at night I wet my own bed
Is our country safe yet?
I need a Squaddie
I'm holding out for a Squaddie 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be spacky
And he's gotta kill Iraqis
And never question why he has to fight
I need a Squaddie
I'm holding out for a Squaddie 'til the morning light
His head's gotta be shaved
And he'll listen to rave
And he's gotta drink lager for life
Somewhere in Dallas
November 1963
Someone shot the president
From the Texas book depositary
Although he was called Oswald, he could have changed his name
Conspiracies run deep my friend, Al Qaeda is to blame!
I need a Squaddie
I'm holding out for a Squaddie 'til the end of the night
He's gotta endanger himself
Without thought for his health
And never question why he has to fight
I need a Squaddie
I'm holding out for a Squaddie 'til the morning light
He'll blow up your larder
Whilst playing Escada
Because that is the British way of life
Up where the Squaddie shoot the civvies above
Out where the tank shells split the sea
I would swear that there's terrorist cell
Laughing at me
Out where they never feel the chill of the rain
Out where the we plant WMD's
They would be guilty of something naughty,
Anyway
When terror's all around?
Towel heads are coming here
To bomb the London Underground
Who is gonna plunder
Foreign oil depositories?
Late at night I wet my own bed
Is our country safe yet?
I need a Squaddie
I'm holding out for a Squaddie 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be spacky
And he's gotta kill Iraqis
And never question why he has to fight
I need a Squaddie
I'm holding out for a Squaddie 'til the morning light
His head's gotta be shaved
And he'll listen to rave
And he's gotta drink lager for life
Somewhere in Dallas
November 1963
Someone shot the president
From the Texas book depositary
Although he was called Oswald, he could have changed his name
Conspiracies run deep my friend, Al Qaeda is to blame!
I need a Squaddie
I'm holding out for a Squaddie 'til the end of the night
He's gotta endanger himself
Without thought for his health
And never question why he has to fight
I need a Squaddie
I'm holding out for a Squaddie 'til the morning light
He'll blow up your larder
Whilst playing Escada
Because that is the British way of life
Up where the Squaddie shoot the civvies above
Out where the tank shells split the sea
I would swear that there's terrorist cell
Laughing at me
Out where they never feel the chill of the rain
Out where the we plant WMD's
They would be guilty of something naughty,
Anyway
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