The Marsh family from Kent, England started doing their song parodies during the COVID lockdown, giving the entire family something to do together. Four years on, they're still doing them. And this recent one is one of their best. As they say in their blurb, "Here’s our less-than-impressed profile of yet another populist politician with highly flexible morality, worrying contempt for democratic process and discourse, but big funding and a big mouth who’s happy to tap into ordinary people’s fears while claiming to be an example of their dreams."
Enjoy.
Dancing Queen, the magnificent pop anthem by ABBA, was written by the usual team of Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson, and released in the (then) very hot summer of 1976. The original song is built around the ‘wall of sound’ concept with ridiculous numbers of layers, flourishes, and instrumentation, and packed with harmonies and grooves. But we decided to try it with just two guitars, drums, and three voices on the hottest day of the year so far. Hopefully, it turned out recognisable and a little bit distinctive – the girls doing a great job with harmonies and some moves! It is a profoundly European dance track that brings people together, a consistent winner, true to the vibe, and (ridiculously) it turned out to be ABBA’s only number-one hit in the USA.
We chose for the parody subject matter the official approval at the convention this week of JD Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate for the presidential ticket for the Republican Party. It’s probably fair to say that Vance is very little known on this side of the pond – hence the need for some additional info and graphics on this video – but he made an ill-advised splash in our world by mouthing off about the UK, pretending a concern about nuclear proliferation (when for a long time he’s been helping facilitate Putin’s aggression) and half-jokingly describing the UK as an “Islamist country”. This prompted politicians from across the spectrum to condemn his comments – on which you can find details here.
So since he dished it out, and since - for obvious (but different) reasons - now is not an appropriate moment for a song about either Trump or Biden, here’s our less-than-impressed profile of yet another populist politician with highly flexible morality, worrying contempt for democratic process and discourse, but big funding and a big mouth who’s happy to tap into ordinary people’s fears while claiming to be an example of their dreams.
Open thread below...
