Coronavirus Rhapsody: isolation is catalyst for slew of parody songs
From a family in Kent reworking a Les Miserables song to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody being turned into an ode to coping with Covid-19, self-isolation is proving the catalyst for a new breed of homemade viral songwriting.
The Marsh family’s interpretation of One Day More clocked up 1.4m views, and made them internet stars with the lyrics (for example: “Our grandparents are miles away / they can’t work Skype, we’re brokenhearted”) being reworked to reference life during lockdown.
Adrian Grimes and Dana Jay Bein’s version of Queen’s classic has clocked up 3.5m views, and turns it into “bleak pastiche” of the song with lines such as “I’m just a young boy, no job security”. Both the songs share a dark sense of humour, are instantly recognisable to millions and have found an audience around the world.
The latest song to go viral is from a group of Chicago-based stand-up comedians who shot a lo-fi video inspired by this year’s Icelandic entry to Eurovision, Daði Freyr’s Think About Things.
Garrett Williams and his housemates shot the video in two hours, edited it over a similar amount of time and then posted the results on Twitter – the video attracted more than 5m views within 24 hours of its release.
“My roommate sent me the song and we were like ‘this song slaps’,” said Williams. “From there we were dancing to it and thought this could be a fun video, we made some suggestions for dance moves and outfits and put it all together.”
The method behind such a huge viral hit is surprisingly simple, according to Williams. He explained that the idea from the Michel Gondry-esque music video came from listening to the song and idly dancing before leaving the house to buy food.
“We were waiting to go pick up food or go to the store together and we started to play the song and one of us was bouncing,” he said. “From that we thought ‘oh let’s just make a video where everyone is bouncing the whole time’. That’s it.”
Williams says he has had friends who have found work in comedy off the back of viral videos and usually timing posts to launch when your audience is largest is a key part of success. However, in lockdown conditions, Williams says there is a new captive audience at almost any time of day, thirsty for brazenly uplifting content.
“In our sphere there’s a lot of talk about the best time to post,” he said. “But now everyone is at home no one has any idea about when the best time to post is. I sat on it for a day, and then my friends said just go for it, post it. So I did and it’s blown up in 24 hours.”
Another motivation for Williams, Grimes and the Marsh family was to stay occupied while in isolation, with Williams saying the video “filled the void” of not having work to be busy with.
“Our group likes to be on the go, we’re always doing shows and trying to keep busy with work,” he said. “With the quarantine situation we haven’t had a project, so last week we had a couple of ideas floating around and made this one.”
There has been some negative reaction to the songs, particularly Grimes’ cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. Grimes addressed criticism of the song’s lyrics such as “Mama, I just killed a man / I didn’t stay inside in bed / I walked past him, now he’s dead,” which were branded insensitive.
He explained that his wife was involved in healthcare and so he was aware of the impact Covid-19 was having on people. Grimes encouraged people to maintain their sense of humour and said he had also received many “comments from people already affected by coronavirus have told me how much they appreciate this”.
Williams thinks the parody videos are proving so popular but people were looking for something fun to distract themselves during isolation and also spending more time online.
“At this time when there is a lot of bleak news, and really heavy stuff coming through people are looking for something that they can disassociate to,” he said. “Something that people can say ‘oh, this is fun’. We can still have fun and not have to be so scared all the time about everything.”