A big Happy Birthday goes out to one of the biggest WE fans in the world, Ben’s Mom. WE love Moms, especially Ben’s. Here is a song WE made about her tea drinking weiner dog, Zenzi (pictured above). Awwww, isn’t he a cutie?
Warning: I once a got a very angry email from a WE fan who lived in Japan (yes, WE have fans in Japan. No joke.) She was upset because she thought the song was racist. I politley explained to her that it wasn’t. She then changed her mind and became a happy WE fan once again. In hopes of avoiding angry emails in the future, my warning is this: If you are easily offended by different types of tea, then you probably shouldn’t listen to this song. You have been warned!
Today is Guy’s birthday. Hooray! And here is a song WE made about him, courtesy of The Official We Wrote the Book On Connectors Song Writing Service. Double Hooray!
A train song is a song referencing freight and passenger trains and/or railroads. Train songs are a recurring theme in some genres of music, particularly within the Blues, Country and other styles of traditional American music. Songs with train or railroad in the title, but not about or inspired by trains, do not qualify as train songs (for example, “Train In Vain” by The Clash), nor do songs where trains are mentioned but only in passing (for example, Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain”). – Wikipedia
Speeding Down the Tracks is a product of the now temporarily defunct Official We Song Writing Service. Somebody paid us $18 to make a train song and this is what WE came up with. What a bargain! Choo Chooooo!
“The train is a coming so you better get out of the way.” – WE
The best way to get out of a song writing rut is to simply just go with the first thing that comes to mind. And when that stops working, just start quoting lines from the movie The Running Man. Trust me, it works every single time. My answer to Weekly Challenge #14 is a classic example of how to use both of those advanced song writing techniques. Listen and learn. Somebody should pay me to teach classes.
I’m phoning it in
Phoning it in
Not gonna give my best effort tonight
I’m phoning it in
I’m phoning it in
Phoning it in
This song only took me ten seconds to write
I’m phoning it in
Cellular telephone
Reminds me that I’m alone
Nobody wants to talk to me
On the cover of lonely magazine
Eat some formaldehyde
Dissect me with your laser eye
this is where the party’s at
look it up on Google maps
I’m phoning it in
Phoning it in
there’s no reason for me to even try
I’m phoning it in
I’m phoning it in
Phoning it in
Singing the first thing that comes to my mind
Larry bird bill csoby hot dog num chuck checking account
tacos
I need some tacos
The running man is running for his life
Tacos
Give me some tacos
Ram it down your throat and break your god damn spine
Tacos
Give me some tacos
Dynamo just got the iphone 5
He’s losing power
Cut to commercial
I won’t kill a helpless human being
Not even sadistic scum like you
This song is not so much about baseball as it is about a baseball card. Speaking of baseball, if I was the MLB Commissioner, the first thing I would do would be to cancel baseball. FOREVER.
I’m really sad I wasn’t able to finish this weeks challenge. It was my idea and I thought it would be a fun one. I had an idea and some stuff written, but I just wasn’t able to find the time to get it all recorded.
Normally when I miss a challenge I just move on, but I think I might go ahead and finish this one at some point. In the meantime you might see me at one of the upcoming WE gigs, wearing a shirt that says MJV #1.
When WE first started playing live shows about fifty years ago, WE only had a small handful of songs in our mustache rock library to select from. “Average Ho” was one of them. WE don’t play this song anymore, and I’m pretty certain that WE will never play it again. Aside from the fact that WE now have much better material in our mustache rock arsenal, there are two main reasons WE decided to put this one on the shelf.
#1 – Ben thought it sounded too much like Weird Al’s “Midnight Star”. I can see his point, but I also feel that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Weird Al is the shit.
And more importantly…
#2 – My Mom comes to almost all my shows. I’ve never been more ashamed of my musical endeavors than those times when I would sing this song with my Mom standing right there in the front row. She never said anything to me about it, but from my view on the stage I could always tell that she was shaking her head at me on the inside. Her internal head shaking became especially apparent during the bridge. How embarrassing. I’m sorry, Mom. WE won’t play this song ever again. I promise.
I am very excited to be playing a show in my current temporary home town of Bellingham, WA. Mark your calendars, it will be a hoot. Here is the poster I spent all last night slaving away on. It is good thing that my rock star skills far exceed my design skills. A good thing indeed.
WE will see you at the Shakedown! – Saturday, November 5th
That’s what the songbook read. The year was 1995. I was a freshmen in high school and playing the trumpet in pep band for the first time. Little did I know what a transformative period the next few years would be for pep bands across the nation. Our song books consisted of tired Glenn Miller standards and popular high school hits from the 80′s, when our song books came out. It was Pennsylvania 6-5-0-0-oooh and The Tide is High and Hey Mickey, every weekend. Then something happened. Something no one could have expected.
A Gary Glitter song was played at a professional sporting event, and it started a revolution. According to a radio interview, with some Tommy Boy Records executives, that I vaguely remember hearing sometime in the recent past – this all started when they noticed a small trend of enterprising folks trying to get NBA crowds into the game with something newer than the old organ chants. Well, they jumped on producing this trend that went on to wild success for the later half of the 90s – and JOCK JAMS was born.
As legend has it, these producers even ran out of songs that were actually popular in stadiums anywhere, so they began adding songs to the album that no one had really ever heard – but that fit the sound. This resulted in Technotronic, “Pump Up The Jam”, and later was responsible for thrusting the Macarena upon the world.
Within weeks, trap sets were hurriedly added to gymnasiums everywhere. The new coolest kid in school was the drummer. You know who was NOT cool kid in band before this? The drummer. The drummer played the triangle. In fact – suddenly pep band in general was cool.
Well, not really cool. But band cool. New song books were cranked out and slurped up just as fast as our feverish little valve-oiling hands could get at them. It was a BIG DEAL. Rival high schools that didn’t bring their pep band on the road to divisionals? Psssh. Good luck getting your crowd into the game while we’re over here bumpin’ Tag Team, losers.
So, this week the WEekly Challenge pays tribute to those grand times, short lived as they were (don’t kid yourselves millennials - the occasional Hey Ya and F* You every 5 years isn’t the same). Two Class A contenders will be hitting the hardwood with their best effort in this unique genre. Mike “Kent-Meridian” Votava faces off against Ben “Lincoln High” Baier. They’ll leave it all on the court. No second chances, and no regrets. Just like I don’t regret choosing the trumpet over the cornet, which is like a wimpy little baby trumpet, back in 6th grade, so I could stand up like a man in those high school bleachers.
Participants who fail to complete this challenge will wear a shirt saying the other participant is “#1″ at an upcoming WE show of the other participant’s choice.
My favorite part of this video is how the text graphic says “Whoot”, instead of “Whoomp”.
