“The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in heaven.” — Mark Twain
You can say that again Mr. Twain, pausing from your ongoing book project in “humourless heaven”. Illustrating this Twainism, the pandemic has coaxed parodies out of popular songs. A laugh with a still-raging pandemic as the backdrop may sound unforgivably cringeworthy. However, from another perspective, the right kind of humour has its place anywhere — even in a pandemic. It is just what the doctor ordered.
Doctors in fact have been in the forefront of this music sub-genre “pandemic parodies” that has been growing alongside Coronavirus with its variants. From New York to Madurai, these docs have found “significant air time” in the jab-box which resonates with parodies about COVID-19 vaccination.
Docs and the jab-box
Medical professionals at UNC Health Southeastern in North Carolina, United States, may not have a singer in their ranks who can warble in the shrill falsetto of Bee Gees’ Sir Barry Gibbs. But they sure know how to turn the English band’s signature song Staying Alive (which featured in Saturday Night Fever) into an anthem for vaccination. The dude who seems to be playing John Travolta has been put through some packaging, which includes a pair of thick-heeled shoes reminiscent of the disco era and a Travoltesque swag that does not even remotely get close to what is being imitated, obviously because it has been kept that way. The disco steps are probably being executed in real earnest, but they also come across as funny — a nice kind of funny, of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfC6SC14KUw
A vacciantion parody by Dr. K Baskar and his doctor friends from the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Dubai, the United States and India fuses the tunes of the evergreen Bollywood hit Roop Tera Mastana with Tamil lyrics delineating the unique features of Covishied and Covaxin. Arriving at the time the country started vaccinating the general public in the 60-plus and 45-plus-with-comorbidies categories, this addictive parody sought to combat vaccine hesitancy. Each of these docs had sent in their lines videographed. Before their practice led them to various parts of the world, these medical practitioners had together packed the classrooms of Madurai Medical College in the 1970s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TAyXKeU4s8
The medical fraternity at Mount Sinai Health System in New York brought the focus to the vaccines in the United States — Pfizer and Moderna — overlaying the lyrics of The Shot from the musical Hamilton with jab-talk. With the key line — “I’m not throwing away my shot” — this song probably was the first and the final choice. The parody traces the course of the pandemic, the fear and the uncertainty and also the run-up to the rollout of the vaccination programme in the United States, with even a reference being made to the Biden administration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D3yA9W---E
Star power
A set of songs emerging from the jab-box has accomplished singers and professional musicians calling the tunes. Hardly a full-fledged parodic offering, what Dolly Patton did at the time of receiving her first dose of the Moderna vaccine, should be recorded with a gilt-edged pen. She took a couple of lines from a song from her enviable oeuvre — Jolene — and gave it a captivating tune and tone, the latter laced with humour, hardly smooth-edged and lends the message the immediacy of a Petrol Direct Injection system.
“I’m old enough to get it and I’m smart enough to get it,” began Patton as she was waiting for her Moderna shot, and would go on to sing her vaccination lines set to Jolene: “Vaccine vaccine vaccine vaccine/ I’m begging of you please don’t hesitate/ vaccine vaccine vaccine vaccine/ ‘cause once you’re dead then that’s a bit too late.”
Back to talking, Parton would explain: “I know I’m trying to be funny now but I am dead serious about the vaccine.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjbSWebA3Ko
Among the full-fledged vaccination-specific parodies led by musicians, Chris Mann’s This Girl is on Pfizer does justice to Alicia Keys’ Girl on Fire. Alicia had sung the leitmotif — This girl is on fire/ she is walking on fire/ this girl is on fire — in the higher register and that is an earworm of a tune giving the song humongous recall value. That jaw-dropping Alicia effect was obviously not going to be achieved as the parody-singer is a male, but it is not missed, as Mann has put together a nice package, getting funny lines, playing the girl himself with a bobbing head wrapped in flying curls. In the music industry for substantial time, Mann’s stock has gone up for the pandemic-related parodies he has been doing since March 2020. There are other pandemic parodies by Mann that have outclassed This Girl is on Pfizer by several notches for the humour quotient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSnDdXaBDAk
The early days
When SARS-COV-2 had broken on the scene and new behaviours — making masks an extension of the wardrobe; and making handwashing a reflex action — pandemic parodies about the new routines prolifererated. Nearly a year-and-a-half later, the well-made parodies still raise a laugh. Chris Mann has produced swell parodies of Adele’s Hello and Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road.
Singer Adele. Photo: AP
Adele’s Hello has been a magnet for parody makers — nothing facetious about that; the song is just hugely popular. When he was at the game of making parodies, which he seemed to turn out at the rate of knots, Bart Baker ripped into this song. So, Mann had to a high bar to scale, and that is what makes his parody —- Hello (From The Inside) — more special. He has matched his parodic lines with the originals as closely as possible to get the most out of Adele’s hit.
Here are snatches of lines from Mann.
One (at the very beginning): “Hello/ it’s me/ I’m in California dreaming about going out to eat/ just a burger”
Two: “Hello-o-o/ can you hear me?/ I am shouting out to neighbours who I used to like to see/ when we were outside/ and free”
Three: “There is social distance between us/ And I’m freaking out!”
And from the central leitmotif part: “Hello from the inside/ it’s just me and myself and I/ and as Stay Home Order that’s breaking my heart/ but it’s clearly what we should have done from the start.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5azNpTwVk8
As for Old Town Road parodies, it is a toss-up between Old Corona Road by Luke Metzler and Daycare closed by Chris Mann.
Take this from Metzler: “Yeah, I am gonna take my mask to the grocery store/ I’m gonna social distance ‘till I can’t no more.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hic8iAbKkWw
Parents from Sholinganallur to San Francisco would relate to Mann’s Daycare Closed as the pandemic expanded their parenting duties, often tightly sandwiched between work calls. The younger the child the greater the parenting angst.
Take this from Mann: “Yeah, I gotta play all day as the daycare closed/ I’m gonna cry till I can’t no more.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fakf4cq4Ygw
As the pandemic shifted work into bedrooms and living rooms, music concerts began to emerge out of these intimate spaces. Family-bands began to offer live FB shows once a week, if not more, from their pads. A ready example from closer home, in Chennai, is “Marc & Marcia: The Singing Duo” and their three children, performing western-music songs from their home. The adaptation necessitated by the pandemic helped them rack up some online following.
Whether live or recorded, music from around the hearth brings a sense of extra warmth to the performance. One of the most powerful illustrations of this idea is to be found far away in Raleigh, North Carolina, in The Holderness Family — Penn Holderness and Kim Holderness and their children Lola and Penn Charles. They have a well-entrenched Internet existence, being known for their YouTube vlogs, which include music-vlogs in no small measure. Parodies are a regular offering. Check out “I’m Your Daddy — Pharrell Williams “Happy” Parody” from 2017 and the more-recent “I’m My Dad Now” (a parody of Michael Jackson’s Bad) which they reposted recently around this Father’s Day.
During the pandemic, they have given a prodigious output of parody-based medleys around the new routine.
Check out their collection of songs from 2020: