July 16, 2006

Horse 592 - Re-Writes and Edits

Listening to WS-FM at about 3am this morning whilst down the street at a neighbour's house playing cards, the song "California Dreaming" came on the radio. Now this song at the moment has just a little bit more significance for reasons that are ever more imminent, but it's amazing at what my super-awesome brain can come up with.

If you can follow this and know the tune, you might want to sing along.

All the leaves are brown
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
All the leaves are brown
I went for a walk
All the leaves are brown
On a winter's day
All the leaves are brown
I'd be safe and warm
All the leaves are brown
If I was in L.A.
All the leaves are brown
California dreamin'
All the leaves are brown
On such a winter's day

I stopped into a church
All the leaves are brown
I passed along the way
All the leaves are brown
You know, I got down on my knees
All the leaves are brown
And I pretend to pray
All the leaves are brown
Oh, the preacher likes the cold
All the leaves are brown
He knows I'm gonna stay
All the leaves are brown
Oh, California dreamin'
All the leaves are brown
On such a winter's day

Of course with any call-and-response you could in theory add anything you wanted to, in fact in this song any of the lines could fit quite easily as the response and still not suffer.

This whole thing makes me think of something like Who's Line is it Anyway? and their Hoedown songs, or equally a segment on BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue with "One Song to the Tune of Another". Triple M's Stump the Scardies is the same idea again so clearly the idea isn't new or difficult to replicate.

Even little ol' me has achieved a wee bit of notoriety with a re-write in about 10 minutes of Your Way by Chris Griffiths (1991) to a song about Norway...
... so I guess any schmo can do it really.

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