DFU SONG: Band on the Run(KKK Byrd is the man in the sheet at the Condi hearing)

Sure I can let you check out my old stuff. Understand, we (my partner and I) didn't do parodies of existing songs usually, when they are to be broadcast instead of merely posted on a forum there are copyright laws and other clearances that the producers A) did not want to pay for and 2) might not get (its up to the copyright holder if they want to let you parody their song) so our parody songs are all original melodies, although we would do take-offs on the style of other songs, we couldn't copy the melody or arrangements too closely. I have about a dozen of them still extant lying around on 1/4 tape and DAT loops, I'll round them up, digitize a couple of them and send you a PM of the link.

It is creative and fun. We can tell you have done this before. They lyrics stick it too them very nicely.

Now, keeping in mind that you are the musician, and I am the commercial real estate broker/bomb blast consultant, help me understand something. I know you don't like MIDIs. That's fair. Uncleshag hates them.

You said mine didn't scan. I wrote it to a MIDI and I think it scanned perfectly with that MIDI.

Here is part of your effort:

Nomination time is here
Time to sneer and time to jeer
Kerry lost but we're not sad
Ohio made a nice fundraising ad
[Pelosi]I'll call Condi George Bush's houseslave
[Boxer]I'll blame Gonzales for Abu Ghraib
[Democrats]Our constituents salivate
(When) Democrats demagogue and den-i-grate

ORIGINAL:

Christmas, Christmas time is near
Time for toys and time for cheer
We've been good, but we can't last
Hurry Christmas, hurry fast
Want a plane that loops the loop
Me, I want a hula hoop
We can hardly stand the wait
Please Christmas, don't be late.

==========================================

Line 4 had 7 syllables; you put in 10. Line 5 has 7 in the original; yours has 9. It seems that you really had to force it to get in the words. What am I missing?

By the way, CLAN ON THE RUN would have been better. I'll give you that.

Well that's the difference between a parody meant to be read and one mennt for performance. Half the humor is in the performance. Lame and goofy rhymes (like rhyming "attorney gen" with "geneva conven", especially in a "hero" moment, is part of what makes it funny. A "hero" moment in a conventional song is like in the song "Blue Bayou" where Orbison hits the big "Ba YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU"- in parody songs you stick your goofiest or most ridiculous trope in the hero moment. In the original song, the individual Chipmunks are singing solo in those lines, the hero moment is "I still want a huuuuu-la hoop" so you need a laugh there, not buried in the rest of the lyrics.

Now yours on the other hand is meant to be funny read, not sung aloud, so you in MY opinion, you need to stick closer to the original phrasing and rhyme scheme of the song to be funny. Frank Jacobs of Mad Magazine was the king of this type of parody. The reason is, the reader is singing the song in his head, it doesn't work if the lyrics don't scan. In a "performance" version, the 'chipmunk' is doing the singing so of course it works, there it is for you to hear, you don't have to make the lines fit in your mind. Its a bit of apples and oranges. And, in a performance tape the delivery, instrumentation, inclusion of bits of other songs, narration and spoken parts, all work. If you just read my transcript, it loses a great deal of the humor. Where-as Mark Twain read aloud is not that much funnier than read to yourself. Its 2 different writing techniques. That's exactly why I didn't write a song first, I mostly made it up line by line as I recorded it. The bulk of the time creating that was figuring out the 3 part harmony on the vocals and mandolin part. The actual lyrics took only minutes.

As I said, this isn't my first rodeo, we had to create a parody of the scandal or news of the day and get it on the next morning's show or it would lose relevance. We got a flat $50 IF they used it, no residuals if they played it over and over. The other side of the coin was it was a user fee only, we mostly composed original melodies, not take off of existing songs, as I explained above that would have led to legal hassles on copyright and clearance. However, we retained the rights to the song in case lightning struck, as it did for one of my buddies.

He wrote a parody song called "Love Behind the Mini-Blinds" about a Tampa couple making love in their apartment with the blinds open, they got arrested, it made national news. He did a quick-one-off parody song, it got used on the morning show then later on Inside Edition, and indy record company pressed several thousand and he had a regional novelty hit and pocketed a few thousand dollars. This is the advantage to doing it on a user-fee basis. My partner and I wrote literally hundredsl, mostly throw-aways that I didn't even bother to keep copies of. I do have a couple dozen I thought were pretty good.

I've done the same with commmercial jingles "One Hour Optical, its guaranteed, One Hour Optical, for fashion and Speed!". Not exactly music for the ages, so I dont' always keep a back-up.

I did it in June ---

MIDI - MORE - (second section)

Moore, we'll assist in your distributing
Moore, Hezbollah will help with everything
Moore, with your aid Islamists surely win
Moore, we consider you one of our kin

Moore, we approve the things you do...would you like a pie or two
When the rest are dead, we swear we won't cut off your head

So, Moore, can you share DVD rights with us
Moore, we need money to blow up a bus

Moore, we approve the things you do...would you like a pie or two
We know you'll be coming through

Moore, we watched you distorting Columbine
Moore, we're sure that the final cut's just fine
Moore, you're the Fonda that we knew would come
Moore, just ignore them when they call you scum

Moore, we approve the things you do...would you like a pie or two
When the rest are dead, we swear we won't cut off your head

So, Moore, can you share DVD rights with us
Moore, we need money to blow up a bus

Moore, we approve the things you do...would you like a pie or two
We know you'll be coming through

woo, needs work :p the first 2 lines could use some punching up see I think its funnier if the lines are somewhat similar to the original, like Moore, your the greatest schlub, while not classic, resemble More than the greatest love, like time for "Time for joy and time for cheer" resemble "time to sneer and time to jeer"- its almost as if your lines bear no resemblance to the original at all, and again they don't begin to scan. "Moore, we'll assist you in your dis-tributing" how the heck would you sing that in time? And everything rhyming with distributing? That doesn't even work as a groan rhyme like orange and door-hinge or Attorney Gen and Geneva Conven.

"Moore, we watched you distorting Columbine Moore, we're sure that the final cut's just fine" That just doesn't work, there's no way to sing that to make it work. If it does scan to a midi, the midi sucks, its not valid. Maybe "Moore, can distort events like Columbine- Moore, reaps the benefits at Oscar-time"- that's weak but it scans.

I don't know I guess we'll just have to disagree about technique.

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