Viral videos have been all the rage for a while now. Anyone seen those farmers and sheepdogs making a giant sheep on the Welsh hillside, brilliant wasn't it! And who else failed to see that man in a gorilla suit between the ball game?
And who doesn't like a song parody? BBC Radio 1 seems to play a new one everyday on their breakfast show!
So congratulations to
Aneuringlyndwr for leading the way (or is that jumping on the bandwagon?) with their wonderful rendition of Delilah! With lyrics written by
Eluned Morgan, tipped as Labour's next Welsh leader, and the best special effects this side of
Waterworld it is work of art. Hopefully
Eluned will see constructive criticism instead of mock when an old lady tries to give some advice on the next big video:
1. Get a singer to sing it. I can't stress this point enough - a catchy election song and viral parody needs to be, well, in tune!
2. Get permission before you use (murder?) use someone
else's tune
3. You're not allowed to make up words just to get that elusive rhyme (
Plaidi?)
4. Using schoolchildren to sing in songs is very risky, it can ruin a song as often as it completes it. But if you choose to use schoolchildren to
make the cut and paste video to your song then aim for
secondary school pupils next time instead of nursery school.
So let's go through this wonderful song bit by bit shall we?
"I saw the wastelands the Tories they shoved on the valleys" - OK, not the best start
Eluned dear. That's not even a proper sentence. I know you have to make sure the sentence fits the rhythm but if the sentence you wanted doesn't fit you're not
allowed to just add in a random word in a random place ("they!)
"I saw the end of the coalmines, the steel and the farm" - OK, better grammar this time - well done. Word of warning though, when you use examples to attack a government we had 15 years ago
make sure the exact same attacks can't be made against your government. More coal mines closed under a Labour government than a Tory one and you'll struggle to find a farmer who believes their industry has gotten better under Labour!
"Thaaaaaaaaatcher was the woman" - Oh my god, the flatness of the singer on this line sends shivers down my back!
"Then she sent Redwood - she thought he could do no harm" - ah yes, Thatcher's most famous appointment in Wales, John Redwood, who she sent to torture Wales between 1993-1995. Amazing woman that Thatcher, being able to appoint Redwood as Welsh Minister a full three years after John Major became Prime Minister!
"Why, why, why Vote Tory" - accompanied by a picture of David Cameron looking like a toff and Nick
Bourne as Dracula flanked by a huge mansion. OK, first of all
Eluned, Michael Howard was the vampire not Nick
Bourne, remember? Secondly haven't Labour tried this Tory Toff thing before only to see it backfire dramatically? Remember Edward
Timpson and
Crewe and
Nantwich? Finally showing a huge house is a risky attack tactic when we all have such fresh memories of a certain Labour AM couple's second home claims!
"We cried cried cried oh Tory, I could see that Maggie was no good for me" - Maggie Thatcher was last Prime Minister in 1990. Nearly twenty years ago now. Time to move on Welsh Labour?
"Labour came in and set the Welsh people free" - Illustrated by a picture of Tony Blair walking into Downing Street - just the man to make us Welsh giddy with
excitement right! And "set people free?" Aren't Labour the people who are now spying on our
Facebook, listening to our phone calls, detaining us without charge, using terrorist laws to check our rubbish bins and want to force us all to carry ID cards?
"oh what a mess we needed to rebuild our nation" - so the first thing they did was spend our money on the
Millennium Dome. And now the Olympics. Oh and Trident, and
Iraq of course - way to go!
"lets go to Brussels and ask for a little donation" - Great idea. All that Objective One funding, let's leave it in the capable hands of Welsh Labour Leader
Alun Michael...
"Jill stood there shouting" - A very brave move showing a clip of Plaid's Jill Evans saying "Wales lost a.." - notice how they've cut the video just before we get to hear exactly how much European money Wales have lost out on because of Labour.
"You won't get the money that's what she was hoping" - so Jill didn't want Wales to have European money? Really, if that's true then we need to vote her out! Vote Jill out now, vote Jill out now! Oh wait a sec, shouldn't we check that you're telling the truth first, when did Jill tell us this...?
"Why why why vote Plaidi?" - Is
Plaidi a word now? I've heard of
Welshie and
Nashie but
Plaidi?
Eluned, you can't make up words just to get that rhyme right. I know
Pheobe does it on Friends but the whole point of her character doing that is to show how bad she is at writing songs!
"They seem very shoddy" - unlike this song and video you mean?
"so before they break the Union up more" - Devolution, brought to you by Labour. English regional parliaments brought to you (or not since you didn't want them!) by Labour. The Government of Wales Act 2006 brought to you by Labour. Sorry I forgot - Devolution was supposed to "strengthen the Union" right? (copyright Labour 1997)
"we need to stop them making the people more poor" - The highlight of the lyrics for me! Ever heard of the word "poorer"
Eluned? It means "more poor" but is, well, grammatically correct! Ah but you needed something to rhyme with "more" right? And clearly "poorer"
doesn't rhyme with "more", but "poor" does, doesn't it?
"over to Brussels we went with a map and a bucket" - Would that be the map of Europe the EU statistics company uses? You know, the one they deleted Wales off?
"We got the cash and the Plaidis they said oh **** it" - great! We got the cash! Now let's mismanage it, fail to get match funding for it and send a ton of it back! Oh and
Eluned, no matter how often you use the word "
Plaidi" it's still a made up word that no-one has ever used!
"we stood there laughing" - glad to see you're taking our economy so seriously, some of us are crying instead of laughing but you have your giggle.
"to rebuild our land the EU gave us a hand" - cue
Alun Michael
"why why why vote Tory, why why why vote Plaidi" - even your made up word doesn't rhyme with Tory
Eluned!
"get out to vote in the Euros or we'll all be sore" - notice the "we'll" all
be sore not "you'll" all
be sore. So she wants us to vote Labour so Labour doesn't feel sore? How about what's best for Wales, or is just what's best for Labour that's important (again!)
"we all know that Labour delivers much more...comedy value"
Good luck on the Pop career love!
