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Monday, December 14, 2020

Winter Warm-up 2020 #2 Songs and Results

There were only two entries for the second warm-up, despite it being a dead simple challenge, and I suppose we could chalk that up to being another victim of the dreaded 2020. This being the case -- and for reasons that will be apparent below -- I'm not going to throw this to judges. The listening party will be at https://youtu.be/RExybVG65DY at 9pm Eastern Time.

However, please remember that shadows are never late. I threw one in here just so these two songs wouldn't be lonely. If you have a song that you'd like added to this album, just let me know by sending an email to spintunescontest@bandcamp.com.

Before I get to the results, let's review the challenge:

Say My Name: Some first names have been immortalized in pop music, so that you can’t meet someone with that name without thinking of the corresponding song. (Don’t worry, they LOVE it when you sing their name at them immediately upon meeting them. It doesn’t get old at all.) Your job is to add to that list. The title of your song must be a given name which, to your knowledge, hasn’t already been immortalized in song. The name must feature prominently in the lyrics, ideally as a catchy melodic hook that listeners will forever get stuck in their head whenever they think of said name.

So we're looking for something unique in song, and which is a given name. Other than that, it comes down to just using that name in the lyrics and making the song catchy. 

THE SONGS


As I said, I'm not throwing just two songs to judges, and since I normally break ties, that's what I'll be doing here. 

Our two songs are Svengoolie by Brian Gray, and Mrs by All the Robots. Both are well-produced and catchy. Both bands are talented to the nth degree. To me, this comes down to technicalities. To meet the challenge squarely, the name should be in the hook of the song. And they both are.

That's where the technicalities come in. The challenge says it must be a given name, and the Robots admit in the lyrics of their song that in the case of their subject matter, they don't know what that is. "Mrs" is a title, not a given name. And while "Svengoolie" may be a name someone gave himself, it meets the challenge more squarely than "Mrs". That alone would give it the win. Add to that the fact that there are a number of songs out there celebrating Mrs. Claus. Granted, the challenge contains the phrase "to your knowledge", but this is such a well-known character that you should at least suspect a couple of popular songs out there. And when we see that they're offered by such popular artists as Idina Menzel, Ariana Grande, and Jessie Farrell... well, that just shoves the decision farther over to Svengoolie.

So, while I like both songs, I'm declaring Brian Gray the winner of this face-off.

Congrats, Brian! Now I'm going to spend a bit of time trying to get "Svengoolie on Saturday niiiiiight....!" out of my head.


2 comments:

  1. There will be a LP, because I've got another 20+ SongFight tunes to play. Drop in and say hi!

    https://youtu.be/RExybVG65DY

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  2. Completely fair. While making the song, Micah and I discussed the risk of flouting the challenge, so we totally get it and agree. We would have lost to Brian regardless; Svengoolie is excellent, it's the superior song, and Brian deserves the win.

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