Some Blog Site

I became familiar with this song when we watched season 24 of NBC’s The Voice. It was performed by a teenage girl, which I assume was the target audience of this song when it was originally recorded.

I get what the song was going for, and I don’t want to detract from that. But for those of us who aren’t teenage girls, I re-wrote the song to represent how they can sometimes appear to their families.

I also just watched Inside Out 2 so I think this fits in with that. And I don’t want it to come across as all negative, but the stereotypes just lent themselves to these lyrics.

I’m impossible
I will answer with a sigh
I’ve got attitude
Yeah I roll my eyes every day
I will hold a grudge
I don’t hear anything you say
I’m so sensitive
Yeah I’m impossible today

I put my headphones on, show you I’m on my own
I turn my filter on, I’ll show you that I am

repeat

I was going to go with “I’m emotional” but I think “impossible” replaces “unstoppable” better from a phonical standpoint.

Before looking up the lyrics for this blog post, I was only familiar with the chorus. Now having looked at the verses, I see the song has a different meaning than what I initially understood. And it takes me back to my earlier years with a similar song.

The song I think is most similar to this one is “I Am a Rock” by Simon and Garfunkel. Musically, it’s not close. But the lyrics talk about the same thing – putting on a stoic face to avoid dealing with hurt feelings.

Captions
Nuns: how do you solve a problem like Maria?
Mother Abbess: Ask Maria how she would solve the problem,
Mother Abbess: then do the same thing.

And, of course, the answer for how to solve a problem like Maria does is to sing about it.

Here is a guest post I wrote for SCL back in the day (2011 in case you’re wondering). It wasn’t run because I didn’t actually write a full blog post for Jon, I just sent him an outline of ideas. But I decided to fill it out and present it to you today.

Back when I was a Sunday School student, a visitor to the class would have a song sung to him (“There’s a welcome here…”) and get to pick out a prize, like a pencil or a sticker.

Now, as adults, if we get a visitor to the church we just let them know there’s a card they can fill out with their information.

What fun is that? Let’s have prizes for the adult visitors too!

Our church is small enough that it would work for them to come to the front and pick a prize from a box, but those of you in larger churches might have to come up with different ideas.

This one is about 19 years late, but I didn’t see that anyone’s done this yet, so here it is.

If Gwen Stefani ever needs an idea for a store, she should open a Jewish bread store.

And, of course, all sales to females are final.

Because …

you can’t take that challah back, girl.

There are some elements of slapstick humor that never grow old. One of those is people running into things. Replace people with animals, and it’s still fun. That was, if I remember correctly, a big portion of America’s Funniest Videos – people and animals running into or falling off things.

A couple months ago, we got our sliding glass doors (AKA patio doors) replaced, because they were drafty and cloudy and needed it. The view to the backyard is much better now, it’s like the glass isn’t even there, it’s so new and clear.

The animals think so too. We occasionally hear a “thump” and by the time we get over to the doors, there is nothing there. So don’t worry, no birds were harmed in the making of this blog post. But the birds did leave some evidence, so we do know that it was a bird.

Exhibit A:

That was kind of faint, so here’s Exhibit B, with different lighting/exposure.

And if you still didn’t see it, this panning shot should help. Exhibit C:

Here is a guest post I wrote for SCL back in the day (2011 in case you’re wondering, and no, the link there is not to my guest post). It wasn’t run because I didn’t actually write a full blog post for Jon, I just sent him an outline of ideas. But I decided to fill it out and present it to you today.

Cheering for Bannerman

Many of you may be wondering who Bannerman is. Kids these days don’t know their history. Bannerman was 20 years old when I started writing this guest post over a decade ago.

Bannerman is a song by Steve Taylor. Not Tyler, Taylor. Also popular for the song “Lifeboat”.

But Bannerman the song is about Bannerman the person who was ubiquitous in that era: the guy who holds up the Bible verse behind the goal posts during football games. I don’t know how that guy was able to make it to every single football game, or how he managed to get tickets in the same spot in various stadia, but that guy was consistent.

He may have retired or something, because I don’t see him at every game anymore. Or maybe the ticket prices are keeping him from attending multiple games every weekend.

I also wonder if he thought of himself as a missionary
“What do you do?”
“I’m a missionary.”
“In what country?”
“In the USA.”
“Oh, which people group do you minister to?”
“Football fans.”

Thanks to a recent TV ad that shows Michael Bolton singing a version of “How am I Supposed to Live Without You” but with slightly altered lyrics, I was inspired to write this blog post.

I don’t know why it popped into my head this way, but I think there must have been some other TV ad that played or referenced the song “Grandma Got Run OVer by a Reindeer”, and I noticed the two songs fit together well.

Behold:

And it goes the other way too, but I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader, to put the words to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” to the music of “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You”.

It’s not perfect though. For one thing this is just the chorus. I have better things to do with my time than to fit the verses of these songs together. Plus no one knows the verses anyway.

And the Michael Bolton song has 5 lines in the chorus but the Grandma song has only 4. I removed one line to make it, and I’m guessing no one noticed until I pointed it out.