My recipe for a perfect song

...might not be exactly the same as yours, Blog. Seeing as your theme song is the B-52s’ “Rock Lobster,” we can safely say you prefer songs that include a bass lead vocal + two crazy female backup singers + surf guitar + organ + undersea noises.

My ingredients are not quite the same. I’m sure our readers have nothing better to do than find out exactly what I want in a song, so let’s not make them wait another minute, Blog!

[Readers, if you have an extra two minutes to spare, that’s all it will take to enhance your experience of today’s post. Click on the hot links, which will take you to Amazon where you can play the first track on each page to hear a sample of what I mean.]

First, the song needs Danny Elfman. While Les Stroud is my favorite folk-type singer, and Jason Danieley is my go-to for Broadway, and Josh Groban is best for classical music, if we’re doing a pop/rock song, Danny Elfman is your man. Not only does he have a fabulous voice (whether crooning or screaming), his range is approximately 12 octaves. Check him out in “Stay,”...he’s singing all those parts! He also did 100% of the vocals in the score to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”  Which he also composed.  What a talent.

Speaking of Oingo Boingo, the ideal song could also use a stirring brass chorus, like the one in “Try to Believe.”  Gets the old blood pumping, hey, Blog?

Speaking of instrumentations, in my humble opinion, we are WAY overdue for a harpsichord resurgence. Seriously. It’s been like 45 years since we had a Top 40 hit featuring some quality harpsichord. Which is why I must reach back to “Love is Blue” for my example here.

Meanwhile, I have to say I just love electronic music, which kinda sorta reminds me of harpsichord sometimes. The 80s got music right in this regard. But for my example here, I’m going all the way back to 1962, probably the first “electronic music” hit ever, “Telstar” by the Tornados. Gol-dammit, Blog, that song rocks!

But speaking of the 80s, the song also needs to have an infectious, happy beat. Like, for example, “Pop Goes the World” by Men Without Hats.  Toe-tapping, isn’t it?

And there you go, the perfect recipe for a fantastic song! An upbeat, zippy tune + Danny Elfman + Moog synthesizer + harpsichord + brass chorus. Not even cowbell could improve that, I daresay!

But you know what, Blog? Ironically, one of the best songs ever recorded is NOT an upbeat, zippy tune sung by Danny Elfman, accompanied by Moog synthesizer and harpsichord, featuring a brass chorus. Instead, it’s a no vocals + flamenco guitar + Renaissance harmonies + speedingly-syncopated-beat hybrid known as Mason Williams’ “Classical Gas.”

Which just goes to show you, you really can never tell what’s going to work fabulously well in music.

YET ANOTHER CLUE

...as to the identity of our special guest interviewee for the Rockem Sockem 50th Episode next week!  He is multi-lingual.  I mean VERY multi-lingual, even more than my iPod, iPo, who knows English, French, Spanish, Latin, Italian, Greek, Polish, German, and Swahili.

Stuff I Bizarradore, Installment #1

Hey Blog, what’s that you say? “What’s ‘bizarradore’?” Well, that’s a question the whole world will soon be asking. And fortunately, Google will be there to send them to this blog post, Blog. Right now, of course, Google has no reply:

But when it does, people will come here and learn the definition:

Bizarradore, verb
To be very fond of and enthusiastic about something random and unexpected: I bizarradore overcooked Swedish meatballs.

So today I’m delighted to introduce you to the concept of bizarradoring by giving five examples from my own life. Now remember, Blog, you can’t bizarradore things that are commonplace, like flamenco guitar. And you can’t bizarradore things a lot of people know you like, like capybaras (well, I mentioned them once before on a very high profile blog, that is, YOU, Blog). You can only bizarradore stuff that very few people know you like, and very few people ever even think about except randomly. So forget raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, my friend.

Just let me illustrate. I bizarradore....

The Word “Narwhal”

Blog, I can’t explain this, but I just do. Narwhals themselves are okay, I guess, but the word “narwhal” really sends me. There’s nothing that can’t be improved by the addition of the word narwhal. Cases in point, the lyrics of “Rock Lobster” (aka your theme song, Blog), and this, the greatest moment in all of the film “Elf”:



The Gibson Girl

I discovered the Gibson Girl in high school and was just obsessed for awhile. Wikipedia (which will soon have an article on “bizarradoring” I’m sure) explains, “The Gibson Girl was the personification of a feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen and ink illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during a 20-year period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United States.” She was feminine and beautiful but also independent, spunky, and powerful.

Being a Peggle Grand Master

Forget Bejeweled, there is no computer game more awesome than Peggle, at least for folks like me not really into computer games. My husband is a gaming geek and all his magazine and website sources say so. And I am an actual Peggle Grand Master, Blog! I’m so proud! It took a ton of work you know! Which I did while holding down a full time job and being a successful fiction author! Enough boasting. The only thing better than Peggle on your PC is PEGGLE ON YOUR PLAYSTATION 3!!! Feel free to watch this video of someone pulling off a shot more amazing than anything I’ve ever done.



Guys with Mops of Tousled Dark Hair and Large Noses

Now some people may say this doesn’t count because of my well-known obsession with Neil Gaiman, but in fact I’ve had this thing for a very long time, since the late 60’s when I was crazy for David Steinberg, and the 80’s when I was strangely drawn to Paul Sand. Mops of tousled dark hair alone work pretty well (see Elijah Wood as Frodo) but I think that’s too common to count. I’d like to say mops of tousled dark hair and Jewish noses (Neil and David are both of Jewish heritage). However, although Paul looks Jewish, his real name is Sanchez. And the principle works just as well for me with Naveen (Sayid) Andrews, who is very much not of Jewish heritage.

Trumpeting on Grass

By this I do not mean playing the trumpet while high. I mean using a blade of grass to make a tiny trumpet using your thumbs. This WikiHow shows you how, so you can bizarradore trumpeting on grass too!

Got it, Blog? I can’t wait to see the comments our readers post about bizarradoring these same things, or some total random stuff of their own choosing!  And don’t worry, I’m sure we'll post again on this topic someday soon, Blog.

Blog gets a theme song

Hey Blog, do you remember in the first season (1997, how can it be so long ago?) of “Ally McBeal,” when Tracey Ullman guest starred as Ally’s therapist? Dr. Tracey instructed Ally to get herself a theme song, a song she could sing in her head to make her feel better.

Well, I loved that episode, because I’ve always felt it was very important to have a theme song. This stems from my youth, when I always fantasized about having my own variety show, “The Diane Bauer Show.” Yeah, I know, doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue like the other shows of those days, “Ed Sullivan,” “Dick Van Dyke,” “The Smothers Brothers,” etc. Oh well. Point is, all the celebrities in the 60’s had variety shows, right?

And everyone knows you always close your variety show with your theme song. Like Dean Martin always sang, “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime,” and Liberace had “I’ll Be Seeing You,” and Carol Burnett’s “I’m So Glad We Had this Time Together.” Well, I closed my variety show with the 1967 hit by the Association, “Windy.” Please press play on the provided You Tube video so you can listen to my childhood theme song while you read on, Blog.

Why “Windy,” you ask? Because it was upbeat and zippy and told about this awesome girl that was magical and wonderful to everyone. In the imaginary world of my eleven-year-old self, I projected that I would grow up to be such a woman. (Of course, I also planned on becoming Miss America, even though I recognized it would require quite a physical transformation over the next decade. Ah, the audacious self-confidence of youth.)

[Sidebar that isn't literally on the sidebar: It occurs to me that YOU are sort of The Diane Bauer Show, Blog.  Yikes, that scares even me, because this insanity is no way to make a hit show.]

I kind of forgot about the whole Theme Song Concept until my early 30s, when various life events of the negative kind caused me to really need a theme song again. Without need for much reflection at all, I chose “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” by the Police. At least in title, it said what I wished, ideally, people would feel about me; it was a fitting successor to “Windy” in that way. When I have a particularly successful day (or wish I could), it’s a fine choice to sing.

Everyone needs a theme song, Blog, and I hope our readers recognize that this could be the very key to improved quality of life. A theme song is as day-brightening as a mojito, but is allowed in your workplace.

Yes, Blog, even you need a theme song! If we had more readers, I would say, “hey readers, post what you think Blog should have as a theme song!” But I fear you might have to go a little while without a theme song if we took that route. So you and I should probably work it out for ourselves. And I think maybe we should pick something other than “The Mash-Up Party Song,” awesome though it is.

Obviously we need something upbeat and zippy. It can’t literally be about blogging, because, well, is there even a song about blogging, Blog? It shouldn’t be a Broadway song because, judging from the response we got to the Broadway post, that wouldn’t get people super excited. It needs to be a song with practically universal appeal, something everyone and his uncle has covered, like “Don’t Stop Believin’.” But likewise a song that no one is sick of, like they are of “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

Obviously that leaves us with only one clear choice: The B52’s 1978 smash hit, that cultural phenomenon known as “Rock Lobster.”

It’s perfect for you, Blog! You love it, don’t you?

Hey readers, if you love “Rock Lobster,” click the “yay!” box. And please share with us YOUR theme songs! What, you don’t have a theme song yet? If you’d like me and Blog to help you pick a theme song, just let us know in the comments and we’ll get right back to you.

And remember, The Mash-Up Party Song is totally up for grabs.