You Took the Music Right Out of My Mouth

Ever heard of Wierd Al Yankovich? He's a musical satirist. That means that he takes a popular tune and substitutes the original lyrics for his own, more amusing ones. For instance, one of his most famous victims is Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (renamed "Eat It").

One may be forgiven for thinking that the parody is often better than the original, which it often is.

Songs have two main parts: the music and the lyrics. As it turns out, the lyrics are secondary, it's the music that's important. You can take the words away from almost any song and you are left with the musical component, which often stands on its own.

But, believe it or not, there are people who deliberately break the rules. They retain the words and substitute the original music for their own. I'm talking about the following unfortunate invention: Rock Operas - operas sung to contemporary rock or heavy metal. Imagine if they decided to make a Rock-Opera out of Macbeth. Yep. That's all we need. 15 long-haired 17 year-old school dropouts belting out "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" to heavy base guitar and merciless crashing symbols. Just like William imagined.

It's difficult to fathom but if, for some reason, Rock or Metal Operas don't appeal, how about Hip-Hopera, which is actually a real word. Hip-Hopera is opera sung to Hip-Hop or Rap (officially "Rap Opera", although I prefer "Ropera" or "Rapopera")? Just imagine Macbeth portrayed by some gold-chained, 300 pound black dude rhyming out, "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". How apt. However, I suppose it takes a special skill to massacre Macbeth in A minor.

According to Wikipedia, "The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a particular chosen text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare." But whatever you do, don't give the monkey a guitar.

This blog post is in response to a challenge to write about Macbeth in song.

Comments

  1. "Macbeth portrayed by some gold-chained, 300 pound black dude"

    Macbeth - never. Othello, on the other hand...

    ReplyDelete

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