I wrote this in the summer of 2002, as I recall, though I don't
remember why. It's a parody of Elton John's "Your Song," the version
sung by Ewan MacGregor on the "Moulin Rouge" soundtrack specifically.
I was listening to it a lot, and I liked the idea of playing it on
the piano and singing it to someone, so I wrote a parody, I think is
how my reasoning went. First performed: July 2003
"Don't Know Why"
I love Norah Jones' song "Don't Know Why," and I sought an excuse to
play it on the piano. My first parody idea changed the original line
"don't know why I didn't come" to "don't know why I brought my gun,"
just so I could change the bridge line from "my heart is drenched in
wine" to "my shirt is drenched in blood." But I couldn't think of
anyplace funny to go with all that, so I abandoned the idea
altogether. I don't recall how I came upon the thong idea, but I
liked the notion of doing a response to a parody I'd already written
a year earlier. This song must be sung either too high for my range,
or too low, unless I transposed it to another key, which I didn't
care to do. I chose to sing it too low, as that sounded jazzier.
First performed: July 2003
"Piano Man"
This is an old one, written in about 1996, I think. I always felt
like it needed one more verse to wrap things up, and since I never
wrote one, I always felt like the song was unfinished. Consequently,
I rarely performed it -- once in a Garrens Comedy Troupe show, I
think, and now and then for friends. Imagine my surprise when, upon
performing it in a couple of Provo shows (including the one recorded
here), it got some of the best laughs of the night. It's become an
audience favorite, and it's a song I considered to be on the B-list.
Let that be a lesson to you: You don't know anything about your own
stuff, you idiot. First performed: 2000, or thereabouts
"The Titanic Song"
This song addresses most of the points of my semi-famous "Titanic"
column, i.e. that the film is too long and features heroic characters
who are morally questionable. Sharp-eared listeners have noticed that
the lyrics have changed slightly. The lines "Kate Winslet/Has a very
famous chest/You'll recall her shirt didn't stay on" used to be "Kate
Winslet/For an Oscar was nominated/Just because her clothes didn't
stay on." The suggestion that Kate's nudity is WHY she was nominated
for an Oscar doesn't hold water, and I don't even believe that. I
don't know why I wrote it that way in the first place. The line
"Kate's a ho/And so is DiCaprio" used to be "Kate's a ho/For
DiCaprio." I decided that wasn't fair; both characters are equally
ho-ish. Later, "Morality is relative" used to be "There's no morals
in this film." I had a problem with that not only grammatically, but
because it sounded so heavy-handed. First performed: September 1998
"Since My Best Friend Got Engaged"
This is an old Garrens standard. Each verse is based on a different
specific engaged couple I knew at the time, though the thing I have
heard most often from audiences is how applicable everything is to
every engaged couple. The music (during the refrain, anyway) is sort
of a sped-up thievery of the Deep 13 theme song from episode #610 of
"Mystery Science Theater 3000." (See? I'm a nerd, too, sometimes.)
First performed: July 1996
"My Siamese Twin Fiancee"
I do not recall what inspired this song. I do recall, however, that I
came up with it while sitting in church one Sunday afternoon. Some of
the music was swiped from a song someone sang that day. The lyrics,
of course, continue in the tradition of "Since My Best Friend Got
Engaged." I don't know if people outside of Utah Valley will
appreciate just how pivotal engagements are to the local culture, so
they might have to take my word for it. First performed: February 2001
"The Scully Song"
I had a major crush on Agent Scully of "The X-Files" for a long time,
even after the show got tiresome and stupid. And fans of the show
know that everything in this song is accurate: She really did conquer
a monster who could change his skeletal structure, slide in through
keyholes, kill you, and eat your liver. It almost ate hers!!!!!!!!
First performed: September 1999
"I'm Handsome"
Wow, this thing sat around, half-written, for maybe four years before
I finally finished it and performed it. I don't remember what
inspired it, specifically. I do remember that I wrote the music while
I was a missionary, and in fact wrote mission-specific lyrics for it
at the time and sang it for my missionary buddies. In fact, there are
eight or nine mission songs that will never see the light of day
again, because they were about my specific experiences in that
specific mission at that specific time and therefore aren't funny
anymore. But at least I salvaged some music. First performed:
February 2001
"A Whole New Ward"
This is the oldest song in my repertoire, dating way back to 1993. It
was the Garrens' first big song-and-dance number, done in the style
of BYU's cheesy song-and-dance troupe The Young Ambassadors (hence
the badly acted dialogue and warbly singing). The song was conceived
by Jenni Smith and Julia Burden, our two lady Garrens in 1993, and
co-written by them and me. Performing with me on the CD is Lisa
Valentine Clark, one of my best friends and the funniest female
Garren there ever was. She and I had each performed this song before,
but never with each other. There's supposed to be a dance bit in the
middle, where the rest of the Garrens would come onstage and do this
ridiculous choreography, but that wasn't feasible at the show. You
wouldn't be able to see it on CD anyway. The part at the end where
Lisa sings, "A whole new ward," and then I sing, "That's where you
are," that just cracks me up every time I hear it, her being so
over-the-top, and me being so cheesy on the "are" part. First
performed: March 1993
"It Had to Be U"
Lisa and her sister Gina were asked to put together some
entertainment for a BYU alumni function, and they recruited me to
help out. We wrote this parody, figuring it would be easy laughs from
a BYU alumni crowd. We were right. First performed: October 2000
"When I Was Six"
I came up with this idea while driving around with my friend Patrick
one summer afternoon, listening to Ben Folds' live CD. While
introducing his song "Brick," Ben explains that people sometimes ask
him what it's about, and he doesn't like to explain the lyrics, but
it was inspired by the time when he was in high school and his
girlfriend got an abortion. Then he starts singing it, and Patrick
and I both sang, to the music, "My girlfriend/Had an abortion," and
cracked each other right up. The idea of suggesting a song's lyrics
are not clear and then having them be really clear amused me to no
end. When I first performed "When I Was Six," I was afraid the
incident described would be too sad and the audience wouldn't laugh,
but I was mistaken. Apparently, the idea of my dad walking out on us
is, in fact, very, very funny. Only the first part of the song is
specifically written, by the way; the rest is ad-libbed according to
my mood. First performed: July 2003
"Livin' la Vida Utah"
This song nearly killed me. It's a Ricky Martin parody, of course,
and for the Garrens, I would dress up like him and dance around like
him as I sang, which is quite an aerobic workout, especially for a
lazy, amorphous person like myself. One time, I actually passed out
onstage while singing it, as I had been sick that weekend and had
already performed it five times in the previous 24 hours. It was
hilarious, from what I'm told. I used to sing it in its original key
(C# minor), which is waaaaay too high (and probably contributed to my
passing out that one time), simply because we were using a karaoke
tape for the music and therefore had no control over how it sounded.
When I began accompanying myself on the piano for the song, I lowered
the key to G minor. First performed: January 2000
"Work at the MTC"
I do believe I wrote this for someone else to perform, a friend of
mine who needed a song to sing for a talent show, or a big group
date, or something. In fact, the idea for the song (a parody of Deep
Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's") might have even been his.
Who can say? Who can say without calling him up and asking, I mean.
When we did it in the Garrens, we had other Garrens pop up in the
background dressed as dancing MTC teachers. It was fun, and it
distracted from the lyrics, which are only so-so. First performed:
October 1999
"The Pioneer Song"
I'm very proud of this parody, which is as perfect a Garrens parody
as we ever had. It was written in 1997, the year of the Mormon
Pioneer Sesquicentennial celebration, so the timing was great. The
song is upbeat and peppy, which equals audience energy, which is a
good thing. And the song it's a parody of is one that was played at
every BYU dance for about five years straight, so everyone knew it.
The "pioneer children sang as they walked" part is especially nice,
if I do say so myself, recalling an old Mormon children's song. (A
minor lyric change: Up until July 2003, the second line said "wife,"
not "wives." "Wives" is definitely funnier, because polygamy is
funny.) I have in my files my notebook from those days (I was a
brand-new reporter at The Daily Universe at BYU), complete with my
first draft of lyrics: "When I wake up, well you know I'm gonna eat,
I'm gonna eat a big ol' bowl of hot, wet mush/When we're finished,
well you know we're gonna try, we're gonna try to reach the river in
a rush/When we cross it, well you know we're gonna hope, we're gonna
hope the ice is thick enough to hold/When we finally make it to the
Salt Lake Valley, well we hope that winters there are not too cold."
Mike Massé plays guitar and sings backup here. He fills the same
functions on the studio version, which was recorded in 1999 and
appeared on a Garrens CD (no longer in print), as well as on my first
CD (no longer in print). Scott Reinwand and long-time Garren Lincoln
Hoppe also perform on that recording. First performed: March 1997
"Give It All up for You"
This is from a musical I'd like to write someday. This particular
number is where a very wealthy man sings to the woman of his dreams
that while he has everything material, he would give it all up for
her. Real touching, you know. First performed: October 2003
"Why Would I Go out with You?"
Another song from that musical, expressing the point of view of a
woman who finds a man perfectly acceptable in every way, yet whom she
still does not wish to date. There's no logic to love, is there? The
music came to me rather easily, which is unusual for me, and it was
accompanied by the lyrics, which is also unusual. It just sort of
automatically became a waltz, without my helping it. First performed:
October 2003
"Hold on, the Light Will Change"
This is a parody of "Hold on, the Light Will Come" by Mormon pop
writer Michael McLean. I make fun of him here, but he's really a
talented guy and certainly one of the nicest famous people I've ever
met. I wanted to do a parody of one of his songs, and I read once
where he said "Hold on, the Light Will Come" was the one he
considered the most special or something, so I figured that should be
the one I mocked. The studio version was recorded in 1998 and
subsequently appeared on the same two out-of-print CDs as "The
Pioneer Song." I recorded it with a friend of mine, Ryan States, who
had a nice recording studio at his Dallas home. He plays most of the
music and can be heard singing "hold on" in the background in the
middle part. First performed: February 1997
"The General Authorities Song"
Ah, this song. It has undergone many changes since its debut, as
necessitated by the new callings and releases within the leadership
of the LDS Church. (The version here is current as of November 2003.)
Even the music has changed slightly, as the church has gradually
called more leaders than it has released, meaning I've had to add
verses and key changes. It was inspired by Tom Lehrer's "The
Elements," in which he sings all the chemical elements to the tune of
"I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" from "Pirates of
Penzance." Lehrer's three albums from the 1950s and '60s were a
tremendous influence on me, particularly since he also sang while
accompanying himself on the piano. First performed: February 1996