How We Made a Song Parody (Or, Doing Cool Stuff Even When You Don't Know How)

I have a long-standing love for clever parodies and spoofs. We've periodically discussed making some sort of song parody music video, but the idea has always been summarily dismissed as too complex for us because I don't know how to mix music and we don't have recording equipment and we'd never be able to make something as cool as everybody else does.

On Friday evening, we went out for dinner and Rebekah said that she thought it would be cool to make a parody of Tangled's "I See the Light" using the phrase "It is Lunchtime" as the new title, and make it a whole story about the long wait for lunch every morning. I agreed that it would be cool, but the fact remained that we had no idea how to make music videos.



I woke up early on Saturday morning and started simultaneously researching copyright as regards song parodies, looking for software that could mix musical tracks, and writing new lyrics to the song. I discovered the apparently well-known existence of Audacity, open-source, free software that can do all sorts of audio related things, found out that parodies can be protected under the "fair use" area of copyright law, as long as they are truly parody-ing, that is, ridiculing, the original work to some extent. In my way of thinking, turning a romantic love song into a love song about lunch makes perfect sense as a parody.

Writing the lyrics came easily--I always knew that would be the easiest part. I'm not a professional as many things....but I am a professional hairstylist and writer, so I trust myself in those areas. I sent the lyrics to my family, and we made a few adjustments. Then we were away most of the day on Saturday, involved in various projects from 9:30-3:30 p.m.

Once we got home, we got back to work. Rebekah was chosen to be the singer (because you don't want to hear me sing), and we spent a solid 2 hours turning mom's bedroom into a silent recording studio, having her learn the song and sing it properly to the music. A good chunk of the two hours was spent trying to get Audacity to do what I wanted it to do with the audio tracks. Google is very helpful in those cases. We finished that project in time for dinner.

On Sunday, we went to church, went grocery shopping, and then everyone was in a lazy mood, so I took the younger kids swimming and let my music video "star" rest. We started filming at 4:30 and finished at 6, just as the rest of the family began eating their dinner, we took a couple shots with the food that others, not so distracted by filming, had made.

Right after dinner I edited it, and that's how we made a song parody. What do you think? Have you ever decided to make a music video just for the fun of it?

When was the last time you just decided to do something, even though you didn't know how to do it? Why not today?