Cover Me

I want to be in a band. We'll do covers. Yes, .Pete, like Me First and the Gimmie Gimmmies, but instead of doing everything punk, we'll just do the most incongruous genre for the song possible. We'll have to be careful, though: I hear all the truly hip people are on strike.

Sunday I was thinking about a joke that someone attributed to George Burns, I think, about the cigar he was smoking. Something like "It's a Lawrence Welk.[...] It's a piece of crap with a band around it." And so naturally that led to me thinking about Mairzy Doats. And the next thing I know, I'm planning out a death metal cover of the song. There's a bit of trickiness with the "kiddley divey" part not fitting right rhythmically with normal death metal, but I think I've got that figured out. I'm a keyboardist type and know next to nothing about playing electric guitar, so I'm not entirely sure of the chords, but if I had the right guitar I'm pretty sure I could work it out.

I heard the Alien Ant Farm cover of Smooth Criminal later in the day. When I first heard that one, I thought they should go all the way with that one and do it totally death metal or totally punk. Sure, they wouldn't have been one-hit wonders, but I'm the kind of guy who would willing give up fame for skillful, finely-crafted contrariness (maybe not money, but the fame can definitely go). Now I realize that they had no hope - they needed better source material.

And then, as I was heading home for the evening, I heard three modern tangos by Astor Piazzolla, and the last one, possibly La Cumparsita, sounded amazingly like a hybrid cover of the Mission:Impossible theme and the James Bond Theme played by two people on classical guitars. I think the lady said it was two; it sounded like four.

Afterward: I had no idea before looking it up right now that the M:I theme was written by Lalo Schifrin, who also did the score for Enter the Dragon. I probably recognize his name from hearing someone talk one of the songs on this list.