Posts Tagged parody
Back to the Future Song
Posted by Angela Brett in NaPoWriMo on April 2, 2014
This is to be sung to the tune of Gulf War Song by Moxy Früvous, or some approximation of it. While writing it I forgot how much the tune varied, and got stresses and extra syllables in all sorts of wrong places while thinking of similar tunes in other parts of the song. It’s NaPoWriMo’s fault I’m blogging it in this condition. Luckily, I have a time machine, so I can go back and fix it later without worrying about messing anything up.
He made a car
that goes through time
with the fuel that he stole
when it hits eighty-eight miles an hour.
He nearly died.
The kid messed up.
Then they botched three more Times
and to fix things they needed more power.
What kind of klutz tears the space-time continuum,
And assumes that the remedy’s to keep on changing time?
He’s just a h0ver boi.
Doc’s just a drag racer.
If they killed their own forebears, would it still be a crime?
Fighters to change the past.
Fighters to get back.
Fighters for hoverboards, peace and a jet pack.
Don’t you insult this guy ’cause he’s Marty McFly,
and history seems to agree
to be what he says to be.
They went back, then back forward,
and the bullies all got their dues,
and it worked out just fine for ‘the good guys’.
Who was hurt? Who’s erased?
Were the the questions unasked.
Did a hurricane start with his Levi’s?
What could they do? He’s just Doc Brown, and not The Doctor.
They couldn’t track each wingbeat of every butterfly.
Don’t think it helps to say, ‘think, McFly, think’ again.
They’ve ways to make history; how could they not try?
Fighters to fix the past.
Fighters to get back.
Fighters for hoverboards, peace and a jet pack.
Don’t you insult this guy ’cause he’s Marty McFly,
and history seems to agree
to be what he says to be.
To heck with causality.
He’s just an underdog.
Doc’s just a scientist.
Time travel’s ‘heavy’, not light at c.
What could they do? He’s just Doc Brown, and not The Doctor.
And history seems to agree
to be what he says to be.
To heck with causality.
Great Scott, where and when are my keys?
Hotel Bacon (Michelle Branch parody)
Posted by Angela Brett in Adventures in Affluent Homelessness on October 13, 2013
This is to be sung to the tune of Hotel Paper by Michelle Branch.
I like mostly just hotel bacon.
Knowing the leftovers would never be consumed.
Raised, erased, their flesh is too tasty to leave here.
so I try not to eat meat but I do.
But I do.
No need to feed pigs the grain for my breakfast.
Sow means, reap none from the future; it’s theft.
I try to stop but it’s free to get this.
I know tomorrow there’ll be nothing left.
And I wanted to be
living in places I could keep living.
But I want luxury,
so I’ll take this hotel, and all it’s serving.
This turned out to cost more than I bargained for,
and I can’t stay in this place another day.
Forgive me; now that I’m baconless like you, I like you.
I just realised it way too late.
And I wanted to be
Living in places I could keep living.
But I got luxury,
So I took this hotel, and all its servings.
(Maybe this temporary retreat is surrender.)
My life’s mostly just hotel bacon.
King of Hearts: A Song For Me to Sing With Worm Quartet
Posted by Angela Brett in Shakespearean Insults, Writing Cards and Letters on August 26, 2013
This is a parody of ‘A Song For Worm Quartet To Sing With TV’s Kyle‘ by Worm Quartet (featuring TV’s Kyle.) The tune is pretty flexible, but I made this fit with the original tune verse-for-verse so it’s easier to figure out how to read it. Perhaps some day, if Shoebox (the guy from Worm Quartet) agrees, I will record myself singing it just barely audibly above the backing music, but for now your ears are safe.
This is a song, it’s a song I wrote
so I could sing it with Worm Quartet
’cause Worm Quartet does really swell songs
and I wanna do a song with him.
Shoebox:
Me:
Sure, I get it, you won’t sing this.
I’m just not as special as TV’s Kyle,
but I really thought we could do a duet;
should I have asked you first?
Shoebox:
Me:
Well I see I’m not going to make you sing
till I write nonsensically and I grow some sideburns.
I’m going to sit in my parents’ basement
and devour testosterone pills.
Shoebox:
Me:
Okay, Shoebox, why still no words?
Now my sideburns are a planet; you’re orbiting me.
And if you think you’re still better than me,
why don’t you go orbit your mom?
Shoebox:
Me:
There’s no use acting like you can’t breathe.
You don’t need to be conscious for nonsense words
like “chairs crochet nebulae into glum proofs
Of the wax insurance of nines.”
Shoebox:
Me:
Well I think I’m starting to understand:
you’d like to scream along silently.
How about for the next verse of the duet
you keep your pie hole shut.
Shoebox:
Me:
Well that was a *beep*ing terrible act;
you lack pizzazz and you’re out of key.
I’ll just sing all the rest myself,
so be quiet for this bit too.
So now we’ve come to the end of the song
The song I wrote that you refuse to sing
I bet TV’s Kyle, after singing your drivel
Will happily sing this song.
TV’s Kyle:
Me:
Well *beep* it then, I’ll ask John Cage.
Queen of Hearts: Zombie/Tasty (Cranberries parodies)
Posted by Angela Brett in Vasa Museet, Writing Cards and Letters on August 8, 2013
This is to be sung to the tune of Zombie by The Cranberries:
Another head exploded,
brethren slow-dead taken.
If you bravely try to save me
you must be mistaken.
‘Cause you see, it’s not me,
it’s just my dead body;
in your head, in your head
is my breakfast.
Glial cells, and neurons,
and neurons, but not eyes.
In your head, in your head, that’s my checklist.
In your head
In your head
Braaaains braaaains braa-aaa-aains…
What’s in your head?
In your head?
Braaaains braaaains braa-aaa-aa-aaa-aaa-nom
You too to voodoo. You too to voodoo. You too to voodoo. You too to voodoo.
Ex-human new one’s breaking
heart is taken over.
And the bravest try to save it;
they must be mistaken.
We have changed recipe
since voodoo in Haiti:
in your head, in your head
is now breakfast.
Glial cells, and neurons,
and neurons, but not eyes.
In your head, in your head, you’ll be feckless.
In your head
In your head
Braaaains braaaains braa-aaa-aains
What’s in your head?
In your head?
Braaaains braaaains braa-aaa-aa-aaa-aaa-om nom nom nom nom nom nom eeeaaarrrraraaaarrgh
And because I had the album ‘No Need To Argue’ on cassette tape, and therefore always listened to it in order, I couldn’t help getting the next song, ‘Empty‘ in my head once I finished ‘Zombie’. So here is the next track on The Zomberries’ ‘No Need To Argh, You!’ called ‘Tasty’.
[We start with somebody repeatedly moving their hands to their destroyed head and looking at them in dismay, trying to understand what has happened. After 51 seconds of poignant contemplation, they begin singing to their intact friend.]
Something has left my head and I don’t know where it went to… aah! Aah! Oww!
Somebody’s made me dead and it’s not when I was meant to.
Don’t you see me, don’t you hear me?
Don’t you see me standing here, ahh! Aaahh! Aarrghh!
Why did you get out that gun?
Don’t you know that I’m still in here?
Say a prayer for me;
move my soul on from this zombie.
My identity,
has it been taken?
Why are you shaking?
Help me… no brains now, they’ve turned into chow, let me show you how…
Help me… why the scream? You suddenly seem… you suddenly seem…
Tasty… eehee… heehee… feed me…
Tasty… eehee… heehee… eat ye…
Tasty… eehee… heehee… feed me…
Tasty… eehee… heehee… eat ye…
Tasty… eehee… heehee… feed me…
Tasty… eehee… heehee… eat ye…
Tasty… eehee… heehee… feed me…
Tasty… eehee… heehee… eat ye…
[These repetitions are sung during an encephalophagous ballet sequence, with the protagonist dancing around the victim, elegantly reaching in to grab handfuls of brain in time with the music, imparting angular momentum to the victim in doing so, such that the victim spins while slowly losing strength and crumpling to the floor. A beautiful, symmetrical pattern of blood spatter forms around the spinning victim. Later scholars will hypothesise that the spinning of the victim represents their literal ‘turning’ to zomebieism, but that idea is a load of brainslop.]
If my inner jukebox is accurate, the next track on the album is ‘Everything is dead‘, but we’ll leave that for another day.
Six things in progress, and this is the one I finish? It was about time I posted something, though. Back in the 90s, when people found out about music by listening to the radio, I was pretty obsessed with The Cranberries. When I got onto the internet, I joined fan mailing lists and found out about all their obscure songs. One of my first web pages, which I think is still up, for posterity, was a trading page listing my somewhat-rare singles. I still like the band, and followed what its members did after it split up. I’ve even seen Dolores O’Riordan live once and The Cranberries live a few times, since they were kind enough to get back together after I moved to Europe and started going to concerts. But as mp3s became more prevalent and easier to download and play, the zombie songs I was exposed to were rather different. So I thought The Cranberries’ biggest hit needed to be brought closer to current zombie song canon.
Edit: I forgot to mention, I’m in this awesome geek girl video by The Doubleclicks!
King of Clubs: Some People I Met on the Cruise
Posted by Angela Brett in Pirates, Writing Cards and Letters on March 5, 2013
Here is yet another parody of My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music, this time about some of the interesting people I met on JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 — not even including the official entertainers. I could fill several more verses and link to more examples of some of the descriptors; Sea Monkeys really are diverse, yet we have so much in common. I’ll add more links to explanations of the various people as video goes online. Some of these links relate to previous cruises, but the same kinds of people were on the third.
Whovians, früvians, knitters and quitters
Charming teen boys who don’t need babysitters
Folk most surprising and folk just like me
These are the people on JCCC.
Beardos and weirdos, who cares what the norm is?
Queer folk, craft beer folk and chiptunes performers [substitute ‘standup’ or ‘improv’ or ‘nerd rock’ here if you like; they were all there]
Coders and yodas and soda geeks too
All folks I’ll miss now that crazy week’s through
Linseed boilers
Fans of Euler’s
Scary horse head dudes
With 80s cartoon fans and two singing snorks,
There’s no-one this con excludes!
Dancers and -mancers and cancer survivors
Makers and bakers and pantses-McGuyvers
Writers, fist-fighters, devisers of clues
These are some people I met on the cruise
Those who keep horses, cats, dogs, dare I say ‘bees?‘
Artists, Kickstartists, mustachioed babies
Snake breeders, cake eaters, ‘fake’ geek girls too
Now that they’re gone I don’t know what to do
Famous vloggers
Weekly bloggers
Details I’ll forget
Please tweet, post in forums, put faces in books
I’ll see you all on the net!
Now if I may blow my own horn (which is probably out of tune) a bit more, here are a few other things I did on the cruise which I’m quite proud of. After using Mike Phirman‘s song Chicken Monkey Duck as mere word fodder to illustrate grapheme-colour synaesthesia and binary trees, as the cruise approached, while I was procrastinating from practising the poem I planned to recite for the open mic night, I finally got around to actually memorising it. Then on the cruise, I had the honour of singing it with Mike Phirman himself, and made one mistake (a monkey instead of a chicken; I am not counting singing the album version instead of the video version he does live, which has an extra pause in it, as a mistake), which I’m going to say was for the purpose of wabi-sabi.
Mike said nobody other than him had memorised that much of it before. I’m sure I’ve seen people doing it on YouTube, but perhaps they were reading the lyrics.
Later in the cruise, I recited my poem about Star Wars during the open mic, feeling justified in using Chicken Monkey Duck as an excuse for the inevitable mistakes (this is how it should have gone.) Still, it’s better than choosing a poem on the night and then reading it, as I did last year.
Mike Phirman (who, in case you were wondering, had said earlier that when you go on stage your body shuts down its vital functions and ‘you can really, really, really have to pee before you go on, and then you walk on stage and your body goes into like war mode, where it’s like, ‘There’s no time for that! We are at war!”) said it was awesome and Paul Sabourin commended my nerd pandering, so I’ll consider that a success! Sure, they’re pretty much paid to say that, but they’re paid to say it partly out of my pocket, so I’ll take it.
There’s one other creative thing I did on the ship, but that’s worthy of being the Ace. I will post it very soon.
Queen of Clubs: A Few Things You’ll Need for the Cruise
Posted by Angela Brett in Pirates, Writing Cards and Letters on February 3, 2013
Here is some advice on preparing for JoCo Cruise Crazy, to be sung to the tune of My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music, because the cruise is one of my favourite things:
Plan out your formalwear; book some excursions;
catch up on memes from the previous versions;
make your own fancy pants, moustache and fez;
read every word every Sea Monkey says.
Sign up for Cruise Monkey, hug tags and Twitt-arrr;
learn to play Artemis, drums, uke or guitar;
buy things for nerd cred and smuggling in booze,
then you’ll be halfway-prepared for the cruise.
What the sluice-muck? It’s a cruise, schmuck!
There’s no need to stress.
Just book, grab your passport and get to the port
and please don’t forget to dress.
Memorise bios and work of performers;
make sure your stateroom and friend group’s enormous;
map out free WiFi at each port of call;
learn not to sleep so you won’t miss it all.
Practise for open mic and karaoke,
and to meet idols without sounding croaky.
Pack things for signing and panties to throw,
then you’ll be three-quarters ready to go.
I repeat: it’s all unneeded;
do what piques your geek,
then bring any meds that you need to survive
and you’ll have an awesome week!
One of the things on my pre-cruise to-do list is ‘write something for the Queen of Clubs’, but I couldn’t think of anything but my pre-cruise to-do list, so this is what I wrote. You can do all sorts of planning and preparation for the cruise, and it’s fun to do it, but even if you do nothing more than get to the port on time with clothes on and the relevant documents, you’ll have a shipload of fun. More advice, especially for first-time JoCo cruisers, can be found on Alice’s blog.
This is my third parody of My Favourite Things, after My Favourite Strings and The Bad Coder’s Favourite Things. It’s an easy song to parody.
Seven of Clubs: The Bad Coder’s Favourite Things
Posted by Angela Brett in Star Wars, Writing Cards and Letters on December 23, 2012
To be sung to the tune of My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music (though like in my other My Favourite Things parody, the structure is modeled more on various other parodies of that song.) Feel free to record yourself singing it so I don’t have to:
Catch all exceptions; what are they the heck for?
Just return nulls that the callers won’t check for,
or show an error box, if they insist,
brought back by loops every time it’s dismissed.
Checks and injection and joins are just theories;
just add more levels of nested subqueries,
lace all your filters with unescaped strings,
fetch from a multi-use table called THINGS.
Love the warning
marks adorning
all your huge source files;
they’re all just suggestions, there’s no need to test
as long as it all compiles.
Code reuse means not one code block is wasted —
ev’ry last one has been copied and pasted.
Make up for duplicates no more the same:
reclaim some space with a one-letter name.
I’ve used these same antipatterns since FORTRAN;
why should I listen to hacks I’m paid more than?
Even my students are older than you;
how dare you tell me I need code review?
Slam resource leaks
till you’re hoarse, geeks!
Rail against that kludge.
There’s no way to beat them; you’ll have to submit
to The Daily What The Fudge.
King of Spades (Moxy Früvous parody)
Posted by Angela Brett in 52 ways to say I love you, Alcatraz Rules and Regulations, Bäume, Dinosaurier, Famous Pirates, Fische, Golden Gate Bridge, Holland, Hunde der Welt, Johnny English, Kama Sutra, Katzen der Welt, Kennedy Space Center, Models, Scenic New Zealand, Star Wars, The Best of Switzerland, Writing Cards and Letters on June 24, 2012
This is a parody of King of Spain by Moxy Früvous, written by me and sung by my not-so-top-secret collaborator, whom some of you recognised as Hello, The Future! She was sick for a while, which is why this is a week later than promised. There’s an mp3, but it probably makes more sense with the video.
Here are the lyrics (forgive the spacing; if I could have a superpower, it would be to always be able to make WordPress space lines the way I want):
Once I was the King of Spades now I’m just a playing card
Oh, how I planted that naked lady now I’m just a playing card
I’m telling you I was the King of Spades now I’m just a playing card
And now it takes lady luck to play me
Wan, 2 3 4!
Chicks dug me, spades really suited me
digging up bones from the late Cretaceous or planting downy birch trees
Now I eat humble pie whenever the ace is high
Caught in a flush for a poker cheater, plotting to crush the other guy
Once I was the King of Spades now I’m just a playing card
A pirate’s deckhand, burying lucre now I’m just a playing card
I’m telling you I was the King of Spades now I’m just a playing card
And now my hand sweeps the deck at Euchre
Once this was the King of Spades
Folks would rave, they’d die so I’d dig their grave, the people said:
“King, how are you such a genius?”
“Your mounds are convex”
“and holes are concave!”
Kill chafer grubs so I would have safer shrubs
I’d do yardwork all through the weekend
and dig diamonds to give the lonely hearts clubs
Once I was the King of Spades now I’m just a playing card
Old tree falls, new sea walls, you sat back, I’d hack that. now I’m just a playing card
I’m telling you I was the King of Spades now I’m just a playing card
Now the Ace hits me up to save you at blackjack.
Once this was the King of Spades
Ladies and Gentlemen, make your bids for the instrumental bridge!
Now some of you might be wondering how I came to be a playing card
after being a real life king of spades. Should I lay my cards on the table?
(shouting)
Deal me in!
You see late one day, I’d just dug a wishing well
Clearly I had to test it, I’ve pride in the service I sell.
And I thought, well this number’s fun, but I should be in the pictures
Next thing my heads are pounding, I’m upside down,
and I’m too legless for britches.
Ship and flatfish, banquet and cat dish
How I wish I’d never made that wish.
Counter to all intentions, I only have two dimensions.
If you’ve felt you’re bored with the cards life dealt
Remember, real life beats royal flushes
so dig your way to gold rushes!
Once I was the King of Spades now I’m just a playing card
I was dealing out gem stones from pyroclastic now I’m just a playing card
I’m telling you I was the King of Spades now I’m just a playing card
And now my dealer is Angelastic.
Once this was the King of Spades
It was obvious I should parody this song for the King of Spades. I assumed I’d end up writing a nonsense song describing all the Kings of Spades I have in rhyme, and that it wouldn’t make any sense at all without a video showing the cards. Sort of like Jonathan Coulton’s Flickr. But to make a video, I’d need someone to sing it. Naturally, I thought of Hello, The Future! since she has already written one King of Spain parody, and when I first met her she was wearing a ‘Hello, The Future! is the name of my Moxy Früvous cover band’ T-shirt. Also, I knew she had a fez and had experience wearing a fake moustache. I commissioned her to do it even before I’d written anything. Once the lyrics were written, I sent her my shouting parts, some noises I made with my rainstick (which I am determined to use in everything now) and a plastic box full of kings of spades, and the one line which I realised, to my horror, would only make sense if I sang it myself, and she mixed it all in. It ended up being some kind of story about a real-life spade maven who turns into a playing card, and it might make some kind of sense without the video, but it’s still more fun with it.
One thing I hoped I could make clear in the video was that the ‘naked lady’ line was referring to amaryllis bulbs; I’m not sure how widespread that name is. But alas, amaryllis is out of season here.
One of these days, I should put this and several other things on my podcast. Unfortunately, I chose a podcast hosting platform which is a real hassle to use, so I’ve been lax in adding things to it.
I used cards from several new decks of cards this week. Obi-Wan Kenobi from a Star Wars Heroes & Villains deck I got in Sweden made an appearance (he’s a King of Spades, but was the ‘Wan’ as I shouted ‘1 2 3 4’), as did a Queen of Hearts (in the lonely hearts club) from the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. Also in the lonely hearts club is a King of Spades from a Kama Sutra deck I found while searching for panties to throw at Paul and Storm. Underneath the ship card, you can see some information from a Golden Gate Bridge deck I was given on JoCo Cruise Crazy 2, and somewhere in there is a King of Spades from a pirate deck I bought in Aruba (the same place I got the rainstick) during that cruise.
King of Spades: My Favourite Strings
Posted by Angela Brett in CERN, Writing Cards and Letters on June 1, 2008
The following is to be sung to the tune of ‘My Favourite Things’ from The Sound of Music. For those of you who either don’t know the tune, or prefer to listen to something being sung badly than to imagine it being sung well, here is a hastily recorded demo.
Leptons and sleptons and quarks and gluinos,
positrons, Higgs bosons, muon neutrinos.
Some folks will tell you that all of these things
are just vibrations in closed loops of string.
D-branes and p-branes and strings heterotic,
worldsheets and nerd feats and mesons exotic,
Scores of false vacuums and questions they bring,
many more concepts that I can not sing
All existence
from Planck distance
strings can well explain,
and if you don’t think that 1D is enough,
then gen’ralise to membrane.
Don’t tie your strings into everyday chatter.
Don’t tell the truth when they ask what’s the matter.
Ordin’ry people just ask on which fing-
er they should put your new synchrotron ring.
Start off by getting all Klein-and-Kaluzy.
Add more dimensions and then you’ve got SUSY.
Have fun with spinors and Lie groups and rings,
call it a theory of everything.
When they mention
your dimension
doesn’t seem to show,
you simply remind them they’re all curled up small,
and that we will never know.
Queen of Spades: Les Éléments
Posted by Angela Brett in The Best of Switzerland, Writing Cards and Letters on May 25, 2008
Ceci est en quelque sorte une traduction de “The Elements” de Tom Lehrer, à chanter sur l’air de “Je ne suis pas bien portant” de Gaston Ouvrard. Je cherche quelqu’un qui pourrait la chanter, je chante encore plus mal que je prononce le français.
The following is a French translation of Tom Lehrer’s “The Elements“, to be sung to the tune of “Je ne suis pas bien portant” by Gaston Ouvrard. Sorry, no recording yet, I can neither sing nor pronounce French well enough. You’re welcome to try.
Y’a nickel, bismuth, tantale, gallium,
osmium, carbone, aluminium,
azote, terbium, platine et hafnium,
et les états d’américium.
N’oubliez pas praséodyme,
c’est juste avant le néodyme.
Y’a phosphore
sodium, bore,
plutonium
nobélium
béryllium
samarium
dysprosium
europium
puis calcium
et rhénium,
or, lanthane
et titane
et radon
sur Krypton
molybdène
oxygène.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
Chimie c’est la galère.
Manganèse, antimoine, silicium
rutherfordium, gadolinium
astate, thulium, césium, ruthénium
m’a dit Dmitri Mendélévium.
Seaborgium, dubnium protactinium
cobalt, arsenic, californium.
Y’a scandium
polonium
rubidium
ytterbium
baryum, brome
et le chrome.
Fer, tellure
zinc, mercure
et radium
potassium
argent, plomb
et argon.
Soufre chlore
et fluor
puis néon
et xénon
hydrogène
et tungstène.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
C’est la croix, la bannière.
Il y a hassium bohrium curium
iode, thorium, étain, actinium
et cuivre, indium, holmium, fermium
et meitnérium et magnésium
et aussi thallium et francium
les gaz à effet de cérium.
Y’a strontium
einsteinium
lawrencium
technétium
puis niobium
et rhodium
berkélium
et yttrium
germanium
et erbium
vanadium
uranium
et lithium
et cadmium
sélénium
zirconium
prométhium
trop d’hélium
neptunium
iridium
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas
très bon en la matière.
Ah ! bon Dieu ! Je ne suis pas !
Chimie c’est la misère.
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