Monday, February 14, 2011

Reasons To Be Cheerful, 1... 2... 3...

Three Gratitudes, Day Two

Thing #1: Arizona Statehood Day

Thing #2: The Will & Grace generation(*)


Thing #3: Ian Dury & The Blockheads' "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3"

(*) The video is a shot-for-shot remake of Taylor Swift's video, but performed a cappella by the University of Rochester YellowJackets. The guys made the whole thing themselves and ended up winning national acclaim. Anecdotally, I've heard that Roman White, the director of the original video, likes this one better. (Incidentally... the accompaniment is all vocal, including the cymbal crashes and "drum machine.")

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome Yellowjackets video!

Bittersweet Sage said...

I love the video, but I also love that it was such a non-issue that it was made. The black-haired guy really does play varsity baseball, and that's really the UR baseball team. Everybody just pitched in.

Anonymous said...

Wow. That's a long way from my college experience. That truly is great.

Btw, I had serious songhead with this song at work today.

I'm a little afraid that that means I will soon be trying to work out the chords on my guitar.

And I wholeheartedly agree that the YellowJackets' arrangement and video are both better than the originals. I'm thinking about buying one of their albums.

Mark said...

The Yellowjackets version is indeed superior, but I still am relieved that the songhead this post gave me was Ian Dury. Whee!

Dan said...

I'm with Mark.

Friends' music makes me happy.

Anonymous said...

1. The way my little cousin Nate says "OK" it really sounds like "hockey."
2. Sending back a finished freelance project AND getting paid for one.
3. Playing Lego Star Wars for Wii with my cousin Ellen.

--cs10