Four Short Things – July 22, 2019

All of these were collected and just about ready to go in February. And then I got busy? I don’t know.

The only instrumental ever banned from the radio

Reading about this made my day. I recognize the song, but had no idea it had been banned from radio.

Interesting bits:

• This is all via a Kottke post which linked to another Open Culture post which then linked to the post that covers the song being banned.
• It all makes a bit more sense when you consider the song title in the context of “The Rumble” from West Side Story, which was on Broadway just the year before.
• Still, an instrumental! Dick Clark had them on American Bandstand and was cautious not to mention the name of the song.
• This all serves as a new reminder for me to watch Rumble, the documentary, which covers the influence of Native Americans throughout rock and roll.

The best Paranoid cover

Weezer released an album of covers a couple weeks ago and one of those covers was Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. The Outline took this opportunity to write up a fairly exhaustive ranking of 21 different Paranoid covers.

My favorite, hands down, is Cindy & Bert’s Der Hund Von Baskerville:

The music is Paranoid, but the lyrics are not. Instead, they’re a take on the Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Who spreads fear and terror
Who destroys what he wants
Everyone is trying to hide
In front of the dog of Baskerville

Automatically translated via Google from the original German lyrics.

My only wish is that it was longer than a minute and 21 seconds.

Weezer’s Take On Me Video

Starring Calpurnia, the band of Finn from Stranger Things. Fun throwback to the original video.

The best Lonely Island shorts of all time per Seth Meyers

“Seth Meyers Picks the Greatest Lonely Island Digital Short of All Time” is a title that explains itself.

I don’t disagree with Seth enough to really reorder these, but the Shy Ronnie sketches are a couple of the best.