New earworm! Explore Minnesota

Joe Mauer is endearingly off-key.

my family is coming back to Minnesota today! *throws hat in the air*

"Spill the Wine, Dig that Girl!" no, wait...?

I went to dinner at a restaurant called Spill the Wine last night, so I now have this song stuck in my head! Here is the original version I used to hear on the radio. And here is a live performance, with Eric Burden on vocals and the great band War playing a cha-cha groove with that wacky flute ("All Day Music" is still one of my favorite songs)

But ever since I heard it in 1970, I've been singing "spill the wine, dig that girl!" and it turns out that it is "spill the wine, take that pearl"? Talk about mondegreens!

History lessons as earworms

I bow down before the "historyteachers" YouTube channel! Their original lyrics give history lessons, set to popular songs, and combine their love of dress-up with clips from films to make learning fun. There are 47 as of now, and they are history teaching gold.
Some are tongue-in-cheek like this lesson on prehistoric anthropology to Britney Spear's "Toxic."

Others are oddly gripping like this lesson on the Vikings set to "Personal Jesus"("And when we expire we set our boats on fire")


I like how they the Canturbury Tales to the tune of "California Dreaming," and included a recitation in Middle English!


The Lady Gaga "Revolution in France" vid has received the most views, I think ('Bread bread bread, off with her head!") but I really like this one about the Odyssey.

Sunday morning Lady Gaga earworm

Major earworm alert!
When I first saw Lady Gaga perform on SYTYCD, I thought she was creative, albeit a little sharp through the first half, a little awkward with the props, a little "who expected to see her out in daylight?" very underground club. But she sang live, unlike many of the musical guests on STYCYD and I liked her creativity.

Now she has perfected her live performances to the point where she is in complete control of her persona, the sets, lighting, costumes, dancing, and the catchy disco/dance-pop sound she's going for.

After seeing her perform "Bad Romance" and "Speechless" (piano's on fire! yaahhh!) "Ra Ra oo la la, ga ga oo la la!" has been STUCK IN MY HEAD all week long, during class, over Thanksgiving, and this morning. As she starts out on her North American tour for "Fame Monsters" with Mark Kanemura as one of her dancers (yay, Mark!), I need to hand off this earworm to someone else, so looky here and listen up!


Every time she has performed the song on TV in the last few weeks, the costumes and sets are a little different: on Gossip Girl, on the Ellen show, on Leno (clip taken down).

Of course, the Gaga parodies are popping up like mushrooms! We have our Saturday night lip-syncing in homemade costumes in your living room version (awesome!), the rewrite as Rad Bromance version. And Barely Political adds Lord Gaga to the mix:


Earlier songs given the remake treatment for laughs include the clever Pokeman parody "Pokéface" of "Poker Face"; "Just Dance" is transformed into "No Pants" in homage to Lady Gaga's costume preferences, and we go to the level of meta-parody with the fan-stalker song "Paparazzi" turned into a Lady Gaga-inspired hymn to Michael Buckley, YouTube star of "What the Buck?"

She does not have the musical or emotional range of my beloved Annie Lennox, who also played with disco-synth and gender-bending in her performance and videos for many years, but Lady Gaga has a healthy sense of humor, and is so much more interesting to watch than most of the other big pop stars right now, as she proved on the AMAs where she was far more interesting than J-Lo, Shakira, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, and even Adam Lambert, who, sadly, did not entertain me.

Here is the awesome DJ Earworm's mashup tribute to Annie Lennox, made with her collaboration:

"Nothin' but the dog in meeeee"

Why must I feel like that?
Why must I chase the cat?
Nothin' but the dog in meee....
(Bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yea)

The company that now owns the rights to this George Clinton/P'Funk song Atomic Dog has successfully won its lawsuit affirming copyright protection for

"Clinton’s “Atomic Dog” based on the use of the phrase “Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea” (the “Bow Wow refrain”), as well as use repetition of the word “dog” in a low tone of voice at regular intervals and the sound of rhythmic panting in “D.O.G. in Me.”

Here's the song as a track for a Pokemon video.


P.S. The announcement that there is "water on the moon" made me remember this Gil Scott Heron song "Whitey on the moon"

It's Electric! (another earworm)

Yesterday someone showed me a new email name that triggered an earworm of massive proportions. I will not be able to lose this one for at least a week! Since I listened to the RadioLab podcast on how to get rid of earworms, I now know that one way people use is to pass it on to someone else! So here you are.


The Electric AKA the electric slide became a huge hit and sparked a line dance craze. It was originally recorded by Neville Livingstone (aka Bunny Wailer), but Marcia Griffiths, one of the I-Threes who sang with Bob Marley and the Wailers, had the big hit. Here's the original video.


You can't see it
[It's electric!]
You gotta feel it
[It's electric!]
Ooh, it's shockin'
[It's electric!]


Et ainsi de suite. Maybe I can replace "Boogie woogie oogie" with a different Wailers tune? One of the happier ones? How about Put in on (Feel them spirit)?
"I'm Gonna Put it on" in a ska version, then slowed way down, then a version with the I-Threes backing it, and finally the version most of us know.
Feel them spirit;
Feel them spirit;
Feel them spirit.
Lord, I thank you;
Lord, I thank you.

Feel all right now;
Feel all right now;
Feel all right now.

Good Lord, hear me;
Good Lord, hear me.

I'm not boasting;
I'm not boasting;
I'm not boasting, yeah!
Feel like toasting;
Feel like toasting
Simply 'cause:

I'm gonna put it on;
(In the morning)
I'm gonna put it on;
(In the night)
I'm gonna put it on;
(Anytime, anywhere)
Good Lord, help me;
Good Lord, help me.

Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo;
Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo;
Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo;
Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo.

No more cryin';
No more cryin';
No more cryin'.
Lord, I thank you;
Lord, I thank you.

And I'm gonna put it on;
I'm gonna put it on;
I'm gonna put it on.
Feel all right now;
Feel all right now.
Lord, I thank you;
Lord, I thank you;
Lord, I thank you.
Feel all right now;
Feel all right now.

"Feeling Good"

On the SyTYCD Top 10 results show, Mia Michaels choreographed a number for the five women to a version of "Ave Maria" by Celine Dion, while Gev did his solo to a cover of the great standard "Feeling Good". He used the version by Michael Bublé, and lots of folks were wowed by how he meshed the b-boy moves with this song.

It's a song from a Broadway musical, originally sung by Gilbert Price in an arrangement that was like a spiritual. What an amazing voice he had! But when Nina Simone sang it, she gave it a jazzy swagger which has marked almost all versions since.

Oddly enough, I had just heard Simone's cover, which I have listened to endless times, a few days ago when I watched a clip of my favorite champion ice-skater Johnny Weir, debuting his new routine in Seoul, Korea. This video also has his performance of his crowd-pleasing "Ave Maria" showcase number. Cosmic convergence!I wonder if Gev, who comes from a family of professional figure-skating performers, was inspired in his song choice by Weir? It's not impossible since he's also a skater.


Here Nina Simone sings "Feelin' Good" with a wonderful visual someone created for a class!

Feeling Good, Nina Simone
by mrfnk

I don't mind Michale Bublé'sversion, and I quite like what Muse has done to the song. Apparently, Nescafé used their version without permission in a TV ad; they sued and won, and donated the money to Oxfam. And Celine Dion tried to name her Vegas show Muse, but they said No, they didn't want people to think of them as her back-up band.

Doo-wop lullabies

Zaragoza is seven hours ahead of us here in the Midwest, so when we iChat, my daughter is usually about to go to bed.
I used to sing her to sleep every night, with songs I remembered my mother singing to me, and any song I could remember: old Joan Baez, tenor arias my old boyfriend used to sing in the shower, Raffi. For a while, at least, she thought I was the greatest singer ever!

Today in Cute Overload, Meg posted this hilarious video of a man singing his puppies to sleep. What makes it especially sweet to me is the song; in high school I dated a guy who was the lead singer in a Sha Na Na cover band (yes, a cover band of a nostalgia doo-wop cover band, but they were fun!)

Here is the puppy lullaby:


The original version was by The Spaniels! They were a doo-wop band in the fifties that got ripped off like so many other black musicians. One of the singers from Sha Na Na has been working to make sure that the old groups don't continue to get ripped off by groups passing themselves off as the originals.

Get This Party Started X 3

I went to see a friend who performs at the Townhouse Bar in a drag revue called Pumps and Pearls. The MC, Lily White, did a number to the song "Get The Party Started," written by singer, musician,songwriter and producer extraordinaire, Linda Perry, and made a huge hit by Pink on her second album in 2001, but this version was sung by Dame Shirley Bassey! (You know, "Goooolllldfingaaaahhhh!"). She has just come out with a new CD, at age 71, and her cover of this song is fabulous!
Here's a live version by Pink who performs l some incredibly daring aerial moves on Chinese silks with her dancers:

Here is the Welsh Diva, Dame Shirley Bassey, consummate vocal artiste, giving it her own spin:

and here is local favorite Esme Rodriguez doing Shirley doing Pink at the Bryant Lake Bowl:

Remedies for earworms

A while back I poked around on the topic of "the phonological loop" and earworms, those songs you get stuck in your head.

The good folks at RadioLab polled their listeners about their earworm, and their remedies for earworms, and came up with this fun post, with a podcast of both the songs and the remedies their readers suggested. One of the remedies is to listen to the song all the way through to the end. Another is to deliberately think of a "cleansing song." One that was suggested was The Girl from Ipanema. Another was James Brown's Sex Machine. Go figure.

Lately the songs that have been trotting around in my head are the ones used for the SYTYCD routines, because I've been watching the videos. As usual, I only remember the first line or so, and it gets stuck on repeat. Today's earworm is "Stop and Stare" by One Republic. It was the audition song for one dancer and the solo for another (who got cut). I guess I'll have to listen to it all the way through so I can stop walking around singing "stop and stare" over and over again.