Top 3 in Song Parodies This Week

Take great music, change the lyrics and you’ve got a great way to brighten your days in quarantine

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

THE LOCKDOWN, DAY 48: If you’ve run out of things to read on Medium, try doing a deep dive into music.

There is already an album’s worth of quarantine music, but it’s in the form of song parodies.

For me, a great song parody has to do four things:

1. The lyrical meter has to be perfect for every syllable (remember, when you hear a singer stretch a word, that adds syllables).
2. The key words have to rhyme the original lyrics, so you almost feel like you’re watching Bad Lip Syncing on youtube.
3. The new lyrics tell a coherent but absurd story.
4. There are wonderful, surprising twists in individual lyrics that hit for hilarious effect.

Here are my top 3 for this week.

#1: These Virus Fears

Mike Range brings his highly infectious brand of humor to the world of music with his parody of “The Living Years” by Mike + The Mechanics. He explores all the psychological reactions we’ve seen in the news: hoarding, fear of strangers, boredom…