Hillel (first name unknown) is the Ben Folds of internet memes, albeit with far chessier arrangements. He first gained notoriety back in March with a song based on a truly dodgy collection of online drawings of dragons having sex with cars.
Now, after reading a Marginal Revolution forum about survival tips that would be useful in the event of being transported back to the Europe of 1000 AD, he's produced another internet-ephemera-inspired ditty that starts out as a pleasantly jaunty update of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Hillel arrives back in 1000 AD with a whole host of plans, like distilling brandy, passing off Beatles songs as his own and inventing the Haber Process, that will presumably set up him up quite nicely in this early medieval period. As the song progresses, however, it becomes apparent that he will ultimately be thwarted by his inability to speak the local language, and it ends with him perishing from lack of food and shelter.
Trust our cynical modern songwriters to destroy all our fantasies about being able to lord it over our benighted forbears...
Please make an a capella chant-type song about people who photocopy their body parts (you may wish to focus on the photocopying of the buttocks), with at least 14 layers of your voice...
Songs To Wear Pants To is the website of Andrew Huang, a Canadian musician who turns ANY email request into a song. It doesn’t matter what style is specified, or how bizarre the subject matter Andrew is equal to the task… And he’s pretty prolific too.
In the couple of months since he started offering his talents to the world via his website, he’s already churned out 90 songs-to-spec; responding to such wilfully obtuse briefs as a ska song about “a samurai flying on the back of a giant eagle”, a toilet-flushing-based track, a request for a jello-wiggling anthem, and the afore-mentioned a capella buttock-photocopy number.
(NB: The posted mp3s include recitations of the email requests by voice artist extraordinaire, Jamie Thomson. These will be featured on next Friday's show.)