Since “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a very serious and harrowing movie, I thought it would be funny if it had a jaunty, shufflin’, New Orleans-y theme song by Randy Newman.

This is what I came up with. Being a huge fan of Randy Newman, his older stuff even more than his movie songs, came in handy. The music and structure are basically a combination of “I Love to See You Smile” (from “Parenthood”) and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (from “Toy Story”), though I guess part of the joke is that they also resemble many of Newman’s other movie songs.

Please note that the song has SPOILERS for “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” I don’t think it’s anything that would totally ruin the movie for you — the Very Bad Thing that Kevin did is alluded to pretty early in the film — but there’s your warning nonetheless. (The movie will be released in more theaters later this month.)

(Note: I should mention that the “Randy Newman sings inappropriately merry song for serious movie” idea is not original to me. The comedy duo of Paul & Storm did one for “The Passion of the Christ” several years ago. I don’t think I actually heard the song at the time, but I did hear about it and can definitely trace the concept back to them. And of course the idea of “catchy tune for un-catchy movie” goes at least as far back as Tom Lehrer’s proposed theme song for the movie version of “Oedipus Rex,” a song that I think about at least once a week.)

Back in the days of the Garrens Comedy Troupe at BYU, I wrote a song in which I sang the names of all of the LDS Church’s current general authorities, all 100 or so of them. ‘Twas a big hit, back in the day. (The first performance of it was in early 1996.) But as Mormons are well aware, twice a year, at general conference, there are usually a few G.A.’s released and new ones called to replace them. So the song was always being updated.

The last update was for my second CD, in 2005. I’ve had no incentive to update “The General Authorities Song” since then because I haven’t been performing at all, much less for a mostly Mormon audience. But then I got word from some friends of mine that their children had been listening to the most recent recording, and were delighted by it, and have even memorized a lot of it (which, believe me, is no picnic). And they were greatly desirous that I should update it, particularly since several of the important names in the song have, um, died since the last revision.

So … I did it. Here’s the new version, accurate as of the most recent changes at the April 2009 General Conference. I slapped together a recording to send to my friends and their children, and you can listen to it too. Non-Mormons probably won’t recognize any of the names (well, except for Gary Coleman and Anthony Perkins, since those are also the names of famous actors), but even Mormons wouldn’t recognize a lot of them. Many of the men were called recently and haven’t done anything yet to gain notoriety in the LDS world. So I guess to the extent that the song is fun, it is fun because, well, there are a lot of names, and I sing them really fast. I guess.

Have you heard of Tally Hall? Well, you have now. I stumbled across this performance on a rerun of Craig Ferguson the other night, and I was instantly a fan. Visually, their gimmick is that each band member wears a specific tie, and they refer to each other by tie color. Musically, they’re catchy, clever, whimsical, and bizarre. (They also have an Internet sketch show that’s hit-or-miss.) This is their introductory song, “Welcome to Tally Hall.” I particularly enjoy the high-pitched screaming at about 3:15, and I’m sad to report that he doesn’t do that on the album version of the song.

Remember music videos? And remember how they often had nothing to do with the songs’ lyrics? Here, courtesy of Funny Or Die, someone has taken A-ha’s famous video for “Take on Me” and rewritten the lyrics to match the video.

If you felt the world rocking yesterday afternoon, it’s probably because of this:

(If you’re wondering how he has a son, it was through in vitro fertilization, and the mother is Clay’s friend Jaymes Foster, who is a woman despite being named Jaymes.)

Yes, Clay Aiken has officially come out of the closet, triggering the expected “well, no duh” jokes. Most observers, and plenty of his fans, have strongly suspected it for a long time. What’s newsworthy (relatively speaking) is that he’s finally settled the matter once and for all and ended the speculation. Apparently, within the Claymate community there has been much debate over his sexuality, with one camp insisting he’s straight while the other camp says, “Um, really? Have you seen him?” Now the issue is resolved, and Clay’s fans can move on to more important topics, whatever those might be.

Let’s talk about those fans, shall we? I attended a performance of “Spamalot” on Broadway back in May when Clay was a cast member. Though it was obviously nothing more than a casting stunt designed to sell tickets, Clay acquitted himself rather well. He’s a good singer, of course, and he showed something resembling comic timing, and he was game to do all the goofy stuff the production required of him.

His fans, on the other hand, all behaved like idiots.

The Claymates comprised about one-third of the audience. They showed their devotion to their idol by screaming and cheering every time he did the following:

• Anything.

I mean this literally. Walking onstage always got a reaction. Uttering a line — especially a punchline — drew sustained clapping and yelling. If he did anything physical, especially anything resembling dancing, and especially if it involved turning around to show his backside to the audience, it prompted a tsunami of shrill ululation. In the second act, when he sang a solo number — a good, upbeat song, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Broadway show — he got a STANDING OVATION. In the middle of the show. For a run-of-the-mill song.

Continue reading…

I have an old friend named John Williams. Not old in the sense of being elderly, and not John Williams in the sense of being a famous film-score composer; old in the sense of I’ve known him a long time, and John Williams in the sense of being a guy in his mid-30s from Utah.

Anyway, this John Williams, like the other one, is a talented musician. When we were living in the same dorm at BYU, he was in a band called Anyone For Squash, which practiced in our basement and which some of us uncharitably called Anyone For Guitar Lessons. They went on to record a fine CD and do some shows around town and goodness knows what else, and then they all graduated from college and did other things.

John graduated from college a couple times, actually, and was an English teacher at Utah State University for a while before moving to Southern California, where it is my understanding that he continues to be both a college student and a college instructor of some kind. He’s super-smart,  and also a good singer and musician.

And now he’s in a new band! They are called Faded Paper Figures, their MySpace page is here, and you can download their album, “Dynamo,” from CD Baby. You can also listen to their stuff for free at both places, to see if you wanna download it.

Faded Paper Figures belongs to the genres of indie and electronica, or “indietronica” as some of the kids are apparently calling it. They remind me of The Postal Service: electronic but not techno, and indie but not emo.

I like the album a lot, and maybe you will too! At any rate, good luck to you, John. It was great to hear your work again in the new Indiana Jones movie.

This has racked up a few million hits since being posted on Friday, so maybe you’ve already seen it. But if you haven’t, and if you’ve spent any time at all over the last few years looking at the various famous YouTube videos, you should take a look.

It’s the video for Weezer’s new single “Pork and Beans” (album hits stores next week), and it features cameos by an impressive number of YouTube celebrities: the “leave Britney alone” guy, the fat kid who lip-syncs the Romanian pop tune, the “Chocolate Rain” guy, Miss Teen South Carolina (“Some U.S. Americans don’t have maps”), and on and on. (There are several I’m not familiar with.) They’re the real folks, not impersonators, and they really interact with Weezer and with each other specially for this video. It’s cute, and it’s a terrific song about individuality from the always-terrific Weezer to boot.

This letter appeared in The Oregonian on April 3, in response to coverage of the Bruce Springsteen concert in Portland several days earlier:

Bruce Springsteen’s band member tells us that it is a rush to him to “turn your guitar amp up to 11 and scream and shout and be presenting amazing music.” Amazing to me that anyone older than a demented 6-year-old can call that racket “music.”

True, my standards are high, as they are generated by the Metropolitan Opera. But the reaction to the Springsteen noise proves the truth of the old adage that “some people grow up, others just grow old.”

Robert E. Vanderzanden
Woodburn, Ore.

Assuming this letter is legit and not meant as a joke, I have to conclude that Robert E. Vanderzanden is the following things:

1. Very, very old. Anyone who was younger than about 20 in the mid ’50s, when rock ‘n’ roll came around, would almost certainly have succumbed to at least SOME of its charms. To have such disdain for the entire art form — and Springsteen isn’t even “niche”; his stuff is pretty much basic, pure rock ‘n’ roll — you’d have to have been already set in your musical tastes in 1955. At least generally speaking.

2. A pompous crotchbag.

For the record, being a fan of the Metropolitan Opera does not automatically make you a pretentious, insufferable jerk. But citing it as a credential does.

The other day I was driving to pick up my friend Lady Dawn so we could go to lunch when I heard my new choice for Worst Christmas Recording Ever. It was a version of “Silent Night,” sung by a vaguely country-ish female artist whose voice was just flat-out ugly. It wasn’t that she was off-key or anything; she simply had an unpleasant voice.

To make it worse, she added some words. Between “Silent night” and the next line (“holy night”), she added, “It was a …,” which made me laugh out loud, which I do not believe was the intended effect. It reminded me too much of a blues singer who will ad-lib “I tell you!” or “Lemme tell you ’bout!” or “I’m singin’!” between lines.

When I picked up Dawn, I described the song to her and did an impression of what the singer’s voice sounded like to me as reproduced here:

[Sample]

Dawn said, “Are you sure it wasn’t Stevie Nicks?” I said, “No, no, I’m pretty sure it was a country singer. She had backup singers that I assume were her sisters or something.”

When I got home, I checked the radio station’s website and discovered that IT WAS STEVIE NICKS!! My impersonation of her was so adept that Dawn recognized it instantly.

Here is the song. I encourage you to listen to the whole thing. Does her voice strike anyone else as grating and unlistenable? Does she sound to you, as she does to my mom, like a slowed-down chipmunk? Do the random fills (“Well, it was a!”) make anyone else laugh?

["Silent Night," by Stevie Nicks; vocals by fingernails on a chalkboard]

Luciano Pavarotti died early this morning in Italy, at home in the town he was born in 71 years ago.

He was famous as one of the Three Tenors, of course, and was probably responsible for causing more normal people to listen to opera than anyone else in the 20th century.

He was also famous for being hugely fat, for being somewhat temperamental and prone to canceling performances … and for raising millions of dollars for charities, for being named a United Nations Messenger for Peace, and for founding a school for young singers in his hometown.

Maybe opera isn’t your “thing.” It’s not generally my “thing” either. But watch this clip of Pavarotti singing his signature song, the beautiful “Nessun Dorma” from Puccini’s “Turandot,” and see if you’re not moved by the incredible power of his voice. The climax, in particular, is amazing.

YouTube link.
CNN story on his death.