30 Day Song Challenge day 08 - a song that you know all the words to

From Kindergarten through 4th grade, I attended Whittier Elementary, a public school in Toledo made up largely of lower middle class kids whose parents worked at the Jeep factory. Not exactly a population that would typically be jonesing for an operetta. But my school was lucky enough to have a Mr. Szor, a music teacher who saw something in my class that would have gone uncultivated in most other places. With the support of parents and extreme enthusiasm of the kids, we put on a play.
But not just any play.
We put on a 19th Century Gilbert and Sullivan musical called 'The Pirates of Penzance' with a cast made up entirely of Fourth Graders. Learned in large part by repeatedly watching a movie version of the show starring Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, and Linda Ronstadt we delivered every note of music and every bit of dialogue in script, disregarding the fact that we had absolutely no concept of what we were saying a large chunk of the time.
This production is what got me on a stage for the first time and the experience has helped to shape me as a person.
My role, you ask? I was the very model of a modern major general.


...and I rocked that shit.



lyrics from "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" as filtered through Translation Party:

Today, a typical bottling plant, the problem of most animal models
(click here to see the transformation)

30 Day Music Project Day 7 - A SOng That Reminds You of a Certain Event

When I was in high school Dad and I went to a giant picnic/festival thing for the United Steelworkers of Pennsylvania at a massive metropark. In one of the more surreal moments of my life, we watched Don Mclean play a 35-minute rendition of American Pie. Almost as surreal as this youtube clip...

Lyrics from "American Pie" as filtered through Translation Party:

Goodbye, miss american pie. However, in my Chevrolet, banks, banks had dried leaves. And they were drinking whiskey and rye singing the good old boys "This is the day I die," she said.

(click here to see the transformation)

30 Day Music Project Day 6 - A Song that Reminds You of Somewhere

Easily my favorite memory from Tulsa was standing in front of the stage at Cain's Ballroom watching these guys rock everybody's face off. After the show, they complimented me on my Obama shirt.
I much prefer I Come From the Water to the "I'm blatantly stalking you" tone of this song, but ICFTW doesn't have a music video. The character in the video is a mix between Artie The Strongest Man in the World and the Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight, so, uh, bonus points there, I guess?

Lyrics from "Tyler" as filtered through Translation Party:

His idea is actually Birurameji Earl, I find the bed is not the best pitch you to buy a computer from the kitchen window beneath the refrigerator can be transmitted to feel the default display, prompt loss of feeling, hold your breath

(click here to see the transformation)

30 Day Song Challenge Day 5 - A Song That Reminds You of Someone

There aren't a lot of things that knock my friend, Angie, out of her element, but my ability (or inability) to hit notes in this range is one of them. My interpretation of this song single-handedly ruined an entire trip to Chicago for her.




Lyrics from "Old Man River" as filtered through Translation Party:

"Before you say it, his development of the river and the river, please do not take care of his elderly"
(view the transformation here)

30 Day Song Challenge Day 4 - A Song That Makes You Sad

This song is based on the story of a Philadelphia police officer and single mother of two who was shot and killed responding to a bank robbery call.

30-Day Song Challenge Day 3 - A Song That Makes You Happy

In itself, this song doesn't exactly have a happy message, but how can you not sort of bop your head side-to-side when you listen to that guitar? I mean, it was used in a CRAYOLA commercial for the love of Mike!



Lyrics from 'I Was Born a Unicorn' as filtered through Translation Party:
"My favorite is the corn, I have not been appointed by the presence of boxes still waiting for my life"
(view the translation here)

30 Day Song Challenge Day 2 - Your Least Favorite Song

As noted in the last post, my big brother started making me aware of music in the mid-90s. While No Rain was and has remained my favorite track of that era, Weezer's debut "blue album" was a revelation to me. Like so many other late-20 somethings in America, Blue was a gateway drug into the rest of the "alternative" universe. I fell in love with that music without the aid of videos like Buddy Holly immediately accessible.
A few years later, Pinkerton came out and while it initially seemed like too much of a departure, it grew on me and became one of my all-time favorites. For several years, both CDs stayed in my regular rotation while Rivers Cuomo and Matt Sharp bickered the band into silence.
In the aftermath of Y2K, it was announced that weezer (sans Sharp - good for him) would play a comeback tour with Dynamite Hack. As soon as they were posted, Russ got tickets to the show at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit. It was my first concert.
We were able to exploit our friend, Ben's wheelchair to push our way up to the front row for what is still my favorite concert experience ever. The band was on. The fans in the balcony were jumping up and down so much that the structure started to literally bounce to the cusp of collapse. It was incredible. I had such a blind, youthful faith in music and life at that moment.

Six months later, this turd of a song came out, crushing my faith in the record industry and humanity in general. Since then I have wanted nothing more than for them to stop making records so I can go back in time and Eternal Sunshine them starting in the year 2000.



Lyrics from Island In the Sun as translated filtered through Translation Party
http://translationparty.com/#9200334
"We have more memory, you may not need your money, call the sea, I love the floating zone."