Where did the ideas for the songs come from?
Each parody song told a story or made a comment about some aspect of the pandemic. In the early days, there was so much under discussion and debate that there was no shortage of new content to rant and write about. Over time, new issues and challenges arose, and I tackled each of them with a new song as soon as possible in order to stay current.
Most of my earliest parody songs described what was actually happening around me and what people were feeling, doing, saying and hoping. But I also used my songs as a vehicle for both small and large P political criticism. Among the earliest of these was Face Mask, a parody of Amy Winehouse’s ‘Rehab’ and performed by Cary Shields, in which I poked fun at those who refused to wear masks in the earliest months of the pandemic. The song No Vaccines in Africa, a parody of the classic Toto song ‘Africa’ described the unfairness and immorality in the unequal world distribution of vaccines at the time.
Many of my subsequent songs were personal criticisms of conspiracy theorists and specific ideas, policies, actions, and inactions by governments and other decision-makers related to the pandemic. These songs sometime irritated viewers enough to provoke, on occasion, thumbs down or nasty comments on social media. Indeed, creating these political songs opened the door to a wider world of non-pandemic political parody and this led me to create another distinct YouTube channel to serve that purpose, Musical Letters to the Editor and to discover even more interesting musical collaborations.
As I wrote new songs, I added them to a spreadsheet, tracking the new song title, the original song, the date created, and what the song was about. Later I would add columns to indicate whether the song was performed or accompanied by an instrumental music background, whether the song was turned into a music video and if so, the URL on YouTube.
When we look back at the topics of the songs in the chronological order in which they were produced, it becomes immediately clear which issues were most important and relevant and at which points during the pandemic. As new waves or virus variants arrived or government announcements were made, some of the same issues reoccurred, so there was some duplication in the topics of songs over time.
Ideas and inspirations sometimes came to me out of the blue or I might hear a random song on the radio which I thought would be a great song to parody. Sometimes, I had a list of several potential new songs waiting to be written.
How I crafted the lyrics
Each of my songs was meant to tell a story or offer a commentary. Some songs were serious, even dark. Others were humorous and silly. Some were highly critical. Some were meant to honour and praise the heroes of the pandemic.
The original lyrics of each song to be parodied were analysed in considerable detail for the number of syllables per line, intonation, duration and accenting of syllables and internal rhyming scheme within lines and stanzas. As a mental challenge, I tried to maintain all of these elements as much as possible with the new parody lyrics so that they would fit well with the original music. Whenever possible, I also tried to maintain at least one or more of the original words somewhere in the song to honour the original song, wherever that made sense. Later, in the process of matching the lyrics to the music while making the music videos, I sometimes had to modify the new lyrics if these did not fit well with the background music.
The writing process often took several days. Some days I struggled to find the right place to begin the new song, sometimes starting with the chorus or bridge and filling the rest of the song around that. Sometimes the whole song simply flowed out of my head. Other times I experienced severe ‘writer’s block’ and I would need to revisit and add to or revise the draft song many times.
The level of conscious attention to the original lyrics also helped me realize that some of the old songs I had always loved and even sung along to were actually very poorly written, some of the lyrics quite meaningless or included words that were chosen only for the rhyme rather than for meaning. This gave me an even greater appreciation for the talents of those songwriters who craft really beautiful and meaningful lyrics to tell a story.
Background research
As I aimed for accuracy and thoroughness wherever possible, certain songs required me to research the facts in order to ensure accurate coverage of an issue or topic. Some songs contained a lot of scientific or medical content, all well researched. Sometimes I made direct reference to the documents, reports, or scholarly articles I had reviewed, either within the lyrics or in the accompanying images. For several songs in which I collaborated with Ben Chan, I sent him the draft lyrics for his professional review to ensure I had the medical facts exactly right.
How I chose the original songs to parody
Choosing a song to parody was not a straightforward process.
The choice of musical genres I used was very eclectic and a bit random, reflecting both my own musical tastes and what I thought would work. The genres ranged from rhythm and blues, old baby boomer rock and roll classics, jazz, folk, and beer tavern songs, kids’ and polka music to Broadway songs, classical music, and opera. Pretty much every kind of music.
There were songs that simply lent themselves to the pandemic topic by virtue of their title. For example, What About Us?, a parody of the song with the same name by Pink, was perfect for a song about hospitalized patients facing high risk when mask mandates were dropped. The original story in the song All By Myself, a story of loneliness made famous by Celine Dion, was also perfect for the pandemic.
The song ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ by southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd presented a delicious opportunity for a bit of irony during the Ottawa truckers convoy as I transformed it into the song Go Home All You Truckers. Oh, and it was sweet revenge for their insult of Neil Young in their original song!
Some parodies arose from requests by friends and family to parody a specific song or to write a song about a specific issue that I had missed. Cousin Fred Hershenson requested a song by the Eagles, and I obliged with Superspreader Event, a parody of ‘Hotel California’. Our hairdresser, Loriebelle Nestor requested that I parody the song ‘Overjoyed’ by Stevie Wonder, and I obliged with Family, a song about how government-ordered closures hurt small businesses. So Which School Can I Trust?, a parody of Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, was my response to a former colleague Rick Kelly’s request to describe the inconsistent messaging and policies about masking and vaccination among Ontario’s post-secondary institutions in Fall 2022.
Some of the songs I chose were classic old songs that I simply loved and just wanted to find a way to use (e.g. ‘McArthur Park’ by Richard Harris, the most famous of all meaningless songs, was used for the parody Back to School – Question Mark, which had absolutely nothing to do with the original, which in turn, had absolutely nothing to do with anything).
When I had a topic or idea but could not come up with an original song to parody, I engaged in some robust online research to find a suitable song. The new pandemic topic or idea could usually be summarized by a key word or phrase (for example, ‘face mask’, ‘vaccine’, ‘testing’, etc.). I searched for songs that contained that exact word or phrase in the original title or lyrics. For example, Where Have All the Doses Gone? was based on ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’. Sometimes I found an original title or lyric which rhymed with or sounded like the key pandemic word, such as COVID Headache which was based on ‘It's A Heartache’; or a song in which the original title or a word or phrase in the lyrics reflected the number of syllables and intonation of the key word or phrase, for example Got My Second, a parody of ‘Call Me Maybe’. Or sometimes a combination of all these strategies produced song titles such as Back in the Office We Are, based on the Beatles’ ‘Back in the USSR’ or New Strain, based on ‘Peace Train’ by Cat Stevens.
Some songs were written collaboratively, particularly in my work with Ben Chan and Joe Freedman. I would send draft lyrics for editorial feedback, particularly from the perspective of the performing musician.
When I had no singer and needed to use instrumental music in my videos, I was limited to using only songs for which I could find an excellent instrumental or karaoke recording.
Regardless of how I decided on a song, once it was chosen, that tune stuck in my head until I began working on different song. I would find myself humming the tune endlessly. It was a pandemic earworm.
The Music Videos
The idea of making these songs public presented a number of interesting challenges in an area I knew nothing about. Which media and social media formats to use? When it was decided to use music videos and YouTube as the vehicle, then how to actually make a music video? How then to post a music video on YouTube? And ultimately, how to draw traffic to see that video?
Having no experience with or understanding of making music videos was not a deterrent. I found a simple video-making application, Microsoft Photo, on my computer and began to experiment with adding digital photos and timing these images to the background music. I created a story board for the structure and content of the music video, including the lyrics and credits. My very first video production used Cary’s recording of Where Are the Champions. Personal photos were drawn from our previous visits to the four tennis grand slam tournaments in Melbourne, Paris, London, and New York. These were supplemented with photos and graphics downloaded from the internet (my first official copyright offence!).
The next challenge was in learning to how to set up a YouTube channel as a place to upload my music videos for others to view. Once this was done, I uploaded Where Are the Champions and sent the link to my family and friends for comment (which generated most of the ‘views’ on YouTube). My first official music video, despite the uneven quality reflecting it being my first, was well received.
I proceeded to create another music video highlighting Cary’s recording of Trinity Bellwoods Park, a musical tribute to the weekend of May 23-24, 2020, when hundreds of young people gathered at Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park to enjoy the camaraderie and sunshine after a long period of social isolation during the first lock-down. I enjoyed visiting the park and taking additional photos for the video. This parody was based on ‘Saturday in the Park’ by Chicago. While the music video was a great hit, it also earned me my first of what would be many copyright restriction warnings on YouTube, in this case for the restricted use of the copyrighted background music over which Cary had sung. Essentially, I was being allowed by YouTube to use this copyrighted music as long as I did not attempt to monetize the video, which I was fine with me.
Throughout the Fall of 2020, while writing new songs, I continued to create additional music videos highlighting the other pandemic songs that had already been recorded by Cary Shields and the on-street performances of my neighbour Ben Chan. The on-street music had been recorded live during the neighbourhood street singalong, so the quality of the audio was not great, but the videos did capture the memory of those wonderful nights singing outside along with our neighbours in the earliest months of the pandemic. Additionally, the song Mask Maker, a parody of ‘Matchmaker’ from Fiddler on the Roof, was performed by Ben and I on my 65th birthday, with my wife Carole and grandson Zane dancing at my side.
How I chose the background music for the videos
Other than the original musical performances and productions by Joe Freedman and friends, the majority of my songs used downloaded YouTube recordings of non-vocal instrumental music with the melody (for listeners who were unfamiliar with the original tune) or singers over karaoke music. The performer of the original instrumental recording, when known, was always given credit on a slide in the music video, typically using an image of the record album featuring that original song. I used software to create MP4 files from the original YouTube music videos.
Downloading and using these songs for my videos, of course, led to concerns about copyright protection. When one of my videos was uploaded to YouTube and the algorithm detected a potential copyright violation, it would be flagged by YouTube with the comment: ‘Copyright-protected content found. The owner allows the content to be used on YouTube’. As I was producing videos that were for purposes of parody and were not monetized, I was able to skirt the copyright violation issue.
Often the original music recording required a certain amount of editing for the video, for example, adding a few introductory bars at the front end of the song to allow for initial title and credits, removing sections of a too-long original recording or shortening the original recording to fit the lyrics and then gradually fading out the music for the final credit slides. For music editing, I used the app Audacity.
How I chose the images for the videos
In two of the earliest music videos, Where Are The Champions? and Can You Hug Me Tomorrow? I used personal family photos as these worked well with the lyrics. Thereafter, I searched the internet for appropriate images to populate each video. In yet another snub to copyright protection, I downloaded and used thousands of images, many of them in the public domain, and others which threatened legal action if used without permission. There were so many great pandemic-related images to search through and to choose from, particularly beautiful images of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and artistic impressions of masks, of fighting the virus, and of vaccines. As many of the videos I posted to YouTube were not flagged with copyright protection issues despite using these downloaded images, I assumed that the copyright issue involved the music only. That is, except for the Anti-Vaxxer Anthem, as I mentioned earlier.
In order to lampoon the anti-vaccine movement, I used a number of images which showed their conspiracy protest signs. It was one of my favourite songs but YouTube immediately deleted the video and my channel was given a Community Guidelines strike for ‘medical misinformation’ and a stern warning that further such violations would result in shutting down my channel. I attempted to appeal this decision but learned that it is very hard to argue with an algorithm, particularly one with no sense of humour.
Not wanting to lose my Pandemic Parody Song YouTube channel and thus scuttle this project, I began to self-censor and was far more careful in choosing the visual material for subsequent parody songs.
In order to provide a degree of consistency and a standard ‘look’ across my videos, I used the same images for the credits, including a red coronavirus image, my unofficial (probably already copyrighted by someone else) ‘brand’:
an image indicating a collaborative effort with others:
and two digital portraitures created by my niece Alex Tarascio, one of me in the process of writing
and one of her (for Carataracreations marketing purposes).
Others around the world were also using their creative talents to describe the pandemic in various ways. One group set up a website
https://www.globalvaccinepoem.com/
and solicited pandemic-themed poetry. Well, that made a lot of sense to me. After all, it was my poem The COVID-19 Dance, written in a fit of frustration, which had triggered this whole parody song project. Recognizing that songs are essentially poems set to music, I submitted a few songs and they were published to that website.
https://www.globalvaccinepoem.com/responses?highlight=4210
https://www.globalvaccinepoem.com/responses?highlight=4211
https://www.globalvaccinepoem.com/responses?highlight=4213
