Song — 1000 A.D.
June 23rd, 2008Recently I lost an hour reading a comment thread that started as follows:
“I wanted to ask for survival tips in case I am unexpectedly transported to a random location in Europe (say for instance current France/Benelux/Germany) in the year 1000 AD (plus or minus 200 years). I assume that such transportation would leave me with what I am wearing, what I know, and nothing else. Any advice would help.”
The suggestions ranged from funny to serious, and ludicrous to ludicrouser. Nonetheless, I spent the next two days worried that I wasn’t prepared for this eventuality. (Yes, I know there’s something wrong with me.) After perusing many of the suggestions on the original thread on Marginal Revolution as well as the side thread on kottke.org, I realized the only way to deal with this was to put this collective intelligence to music.
This song was kind of accidental. I have several others in the works, but this just sort of popped up on the piano as we were about to leave the house. I jotted it down quickly (correct… I’m unable to memorize 4 chords) and I kept obsessing about this thread so the only logical conclusion was to put the music and topic together.
I did my best to capture as many of the best comments as possible but 3:26 isn’t a huge canvas. I’m particularly sad that I never figured out a way to mention how bad the people must have smelled, or my plan to get rich selling soap.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Very cute! You are getting closer and closer to Jonathan Coulton. I love that people actually do worry about this kind of thing though
June 24th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Ha! I like it.
June 24th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Glad you liked it. As for the comparison, it wasn’t my (conscious) intention, but I’ll take the compliment.
June 24th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Quite funny. Good stuff.
June 24th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Wow…I really like your voice, and a great arrangement too!
Are you playing all the instruments, or are their other musicians/computer synthesizers involved?
June 24th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
very pro! impressive
June 24th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Thanks for the nice words.
@Leo: This one happens to be all me. I do most things on the other tracks, but have friends who pitch in periodically. I try to note who does what in the post for each song.
June 24th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Outstanding!
Caught your song from the thread posted on MetaFilter; it’s going into my iTunes.
See you in the 11th Century!
June 24th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I’m putting the song on repeat since this morning at work. Somebody should post the lyrics and link them to the original comments.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
[…] 1000 A.D.# […]
June 24th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
@chagall: I’ve posted the lyrics here. Feel free to post a link to them as you see fit.
And thanks for listening all day.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:19 am
[…] threads alone are worth their weight in gold, but a young man with the voice of an angel came along and set the whole thing to song. But father, I don’t want large tracts of land. I did my best to capture as many of the best […]
June 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Ha! This is great–a really clever idea that holds up as a legitimate pop song. I like the harmony over the chorus. And the keyboard solo! But the lyrics of course are particularly impressive, as you pull in all the bits from the thread. Well done!
June 25th, 2008 at 10:27 am
This is completely hilarious and amazing. We should be friends.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
[…] amusing song about survival, should one wake up one day in 1000 […]
June 25th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Very well done. Now start a thread on surviving being sent to 3000 AD and do a song on that =p
June 25th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
@don: you start the thread, I’ll write the song.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
wow! sweet! you rock!
You know writing about people’s favorite threads would be cute. Got any songs about lolcats?
June 25th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stop thinking about those things. I’m actually thinking about getting my teeth capped with gold crowns just in case.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
@Jeff: Yeah… I seem to have found my niche - writing soundtracks to interesting threads. Who knew threads needed musical accompaniment?
This is not the first song I’ve written focused on a specific thread - here’s the first.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am
[…] 1000 A.D.# […]
July 8th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
[…] if you are really up for it, here’s a free MP3, 1000 A.D. on the same […]
July 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
[…] (mp3) 1000 A.D. […]
August 11th, 2008 at 1:41 am
[…] with the local monastery. Someone made a comic about hipsters crash landing in Ye Olden Tymes and someone else even wrote a song based on all the comments in the […]