Everyone in my family agrees: The highlight of last summer's visit with our Australian cousins was recording a new Vengefull Kurtain Rods song, "Marsupial Maiden of the Outback".
What is a Vengefull Kurtain Rods song? I hope my friends and bandmates Dan George and Doug King (and many other semi-regular participants) will forgive me for converting the particular into a generic. A Vengefull Kurtain Rods song is a song composed and performed as follows.
How to Create a Vengeful Kurtain Rods Song
(1.) Gather a group of 2-12 friends for about two hours -- the total time allotted for composing and recording the song. If you spend longer than this, you're doing it wrong. The group need not have any musical ability whatsoever, except for one person who is capable of playing a chord progression on piano or guitar, the anchor musician.
(2.) Write lyrics for a humorous song around a goofy idea. Leave your fussiness at the back door. Some ideas around which VKR songs have been composed: the disadvantages of having a bean-shaped head, the joy of eating donuts, seeing a girl's name in your alphabet soup, a woman who decides she prefers kangaroos to men. Write fast and don't revise too much.
(3.) While the lyrics are being composed, the anchor musician creates a simple chord progression alongside, and one person volunteers as singer. The singer need not have any notable singing ability. (Usually it's better if they don't.)
(4.) Gather everyone around a recording device (e.g., a phone). Everyone grabs some readily available instrument or quasi-instrument, for example, kazoo, harmonica, bell, an old marching-band clarinet, or improvised noise-makers (e.g., strike a pencil on cans and boxes). Enthusiasm first. Ignore ability. No instructions on how to do it right, no criticism, no special effort to be musically "good". Just make some approximately musical sounds alongside the anchor musician, without crowding out the singer. Every person improvises their part for each take.
(5.) Record from the very first take, before anyone knows what they're doing. The only real structure is the lyrics and the anchor musician's chord progression.
(6.) You will goof up partway through the first take. Just start again from the beginning, recording the whole time. Repeat until you have one full take. At this point, everyone will have a rough sense of what they want to contribute to the song.
(7.) Record just a few full takes, that's it. Three or four is about right. Eight is too many.
(8.) Keep your favorite take.
Remember the VKR motto: "If you get hung up on quality, you miss out on the pure joy of creation."
Sample songs and lyrics below. To be clear, I'm not claiming these songs are good -- just that we enjoyed making them. VKR and its affiliates, heirs, and nominees take no responsibility for any nausea, brain aneurysms, or irreversible akinetic mutism that may result from listening.
Donut Lust
Jack Barnette, Eric Schwitzgebel, Doug King, Dan George
Donuts make me happy Donuts make me sing I love my donuts like Colonel Sanders likes his chicken wings Oh, greasy greasy, Eat em til I'm queasy and I bust Give me one with sprinkles I'm deep-frying in DONUT LUST Eat one filled with liver Eat one filled with spam Doctor Seuss would like me cause I eat em with green eggs and ham There ain't a filling That I ain't willing To consume with total trust I want em for here and to go Give me a bagful of DONUT LUST Way back in childhood My momma taught me how to eat Radishes and raisins, rutabagas, broccoli, and beets My belly's getting bigger In donuts I trust But I'm still grinning cause it ain't no sinning To give in to DONUT LUST I want frosting on my fingers Powdered sugar in my face I'm like a cop, I just can't stop whenever I get that taste Raise the price of donuts Hey I can adjust (This guy's got no sense of disgust!) Honey get the keys Hey, I've got DONUT LUST Requiem for a Bug
https://tinyurl.com/VKR-Requiem
David Barlia, Eric Schwitzgebel, Douglas King, various other partygoers
Oh you Were never meant to be inside That's why you died Such slender legs A tiny heart that begs And eyes that see the world so differently from me Oh I Never meant to be your end I just wanted to be your friend Kill that bug Kill that bug Kill him til he's dead Kill that bug Kill that bug Stomp on his little bug head Gotta stomp him on the floor Squish him like goo Don't let him get away Or he'll bring his friends too Kill that bug Kill that bug Kill him til he's dead I said Kill him til he's dead Marsupial Maiden of the Outback
https://tinyurl.com/VKR-Marsupial
Various members of the Schwitzgebel and Price-Kulkarni families, some of whom wisely prefer to remain anonymous
Man is stinky, man is sweaty, a hug is not enough I'm looking for someone whose legs are really buff Our faces are flat, our faces are bald A pocket like a locket my hands and heart will hold (Chorus) In leaps and bounds they thump across the sandy desert plain (I will join the pack) That soaring throne of glory I surely will attain (I will join the pack) Marsupial maiden of the outback, my hair a wild mane I spy a hulking female and my vision blurs My sympathetic nervous system hops in time with hers A regal queen splayed across the dewey mountain grass I will be forever her passenger princess (Chorus) In leaps and bounds they thump across the sandy desert plain (I will join the pack) That soaring throne of glory I surely will attain (I will join the pack) Marsupial maiden of the outback, my hair a wild mane Lovingly I thrust my head down into her pouch From the darkness rises an insulated grouch I withdraw, betrayed, and gaze upon her furry face I decide to give up the chase And figure koalas are more my pace (Koalas, I should have thought of it before, I can keep up with them)
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