SOUNDTRACK: PORTUGAL. THE MAN-“Feel It Still” (Weird Al Remix) (2018).
Imagine taking this ubiquitous and insanely catchy hit and removing all of the music and replacing it with an oompah-pah polka.
That’s what happened when Portugal. The Man asked “Weird Al” Yankovic to remix their song.
Basically Al has taken the song and turned it into one of his polka medley type songs, but not exactly. He doesn’t speed up the song (although the polka bass makes the song feel more intense) and he leaves most of the original vocals intact.
The song begins and sounds pretty much the same. Then come the big tuba (possibly) bass notes that signify polka. There’s accordion trills at the end of each line and the standard polka transition that Al uses in all of his polka medleys between verses.
Verse two features lots of unnecessary and amusing backing vocals from Al, as well as obligatory “heys!” in the background.
Each further section gets a unique treatment. The “I’m a rebel just for kicks” part now features fast banjo chords and the “easy coming” part is sung by Al.
It’s a funny treatment–not a typical remix at all. But it also retains the spirit of the original, just in a very different-sounding way.
[READ: October 10, 2020] The Two of Swords: Volume One [excerpt]
K.J. Parker’s Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City contained two excerpts from other books as bonus material. The first is an excerpt from Parker’s earlier trilogy The Two of Swords.
The blurb says
A soldier with a gift for archery. A woman who kills without a second thought Two brothers, both unbeatable generals, now fighting for opposing armies. No one in the vast and once glorious United Empire remains untouched by the rift between East and West, and the war has been fought for as long as anyone can remember. Some still survive who know how it started, but no one knows how it will end. Except, perhaps, the Two of Swords.
Sounds pretty epic.
The excerpt is actually a very small detail and I found it very compelling.
Teucer is an archer. He has an excellent draw but his release isn’t great. He tends to be a bit hasty. But on this day, he was releasing perfectly. He seemed to be hearing voices in his head–voices that were guiding his hands. When he snapped out of his reverie, he realized that he had hit eight bullseyes.
If he hit two more (called a “possible”), he would be only the third person to ever do so in the history of competition. True, this was only practice, but still, there were people watching.
The voice told him to pause and have a look at the target. He knew that if he did, this meant that everyone knew that he knew he could get a possible. But the voice told him to go anyway. He did. He saw where he had to hit–the bottom of the bullseye–exactly enough room for two arrows. There was no way.
He could deliberately try to miss, to spare himself the anguish. But the voice told him that this mattered. It matters. And that helps. And he thought, if he did it, however long he lived, he’d be able to say he did it.
Suddenly, people were hitting him and cheering. Then they lifted him up in the air and carried him to the target.
When Teucer returned home to tell his parents, they were in tears. There was a letter for him. He was being called up to fight.
The writing of this section was exquisite. The details, being in Teucer’s head, the way the unfamiliar words and phrases were thrown in and then explained as part of the story. It was all very compelling.
This story doesn’t seem particularity comical (I thought that the Parker pseudonym meant a more comical story), but it certainly intriguing.
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