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Sodios:
Sesame Street: "What's the Name of that Song" By: Josh Adachi Until now, I've focused these articles on entire episodes of different shows. Since today's article is about a short musical segment, it probably doesn't fit the mold; however, given the fact that I've watched this segment about 15 times, it really has become like a full-length episode for me. Although I would have no problem doing a Sesame Street 40th Anniversary tribute article, this clip actually came to my attention about a day before Google started spamming "monsters" all over their homepage, so my decision to do this article is actually based entirely on its own awesomeness. What makes this video so awesome, you ask? What doesn't make this video awesome? It has almost every aspect of a great music video: a great song, a talented madman, a fly honey, great directing, and some behind-the-scenes scandal.
Item #1: The Song As a semi-professional musician and composer, I feel somewhat qualified to speak on this song's behalf, and let me just say that despite the cuteness and catchiness of this song, the composition is actually a bit complex. The second chord has an augmented 5th, and throughout the song the chords subtly pull in and out of scale. That the song remains completely singable is a testament to the sensibilities of the composer. The lyrics are pretty clever as well. The song is all about the experience of trying to remember a song that you have forgotten: you hum little pieces of the song, interwoven with your own thoughts and the thoughts of your friends who join in on the quest, until the communal experience transcends the original song. It's clever in a basic sense, like a movie about people making a movie that's better than the movie that they're making, but it's also clever in a deeper Buddhist sense. It parallels the way that we go through life looking to trying to find meaning in our life, not realizing the ways in which the search itself is what makes life enjoyable. The instrumentation is brilliant. The Sesame Street band perfectly captures a spirit of playfulness in their music. It took me years of playing music to truly appreciate this group. It probably wasn't until I was in college when I heard some Sesame Street music and realized that NO BAND SOUNDS LIKE THIS. I'm not actually recommending that you get stoned and listened to Sesame Street music, as I've done it and I may be proof that it leads to severe emotional regression, but you know, you might want to at least feel bitter about the drop in quality (or at least musicianship) that children's programming has experienced lately.
Item #2: The Madman The most talented performer in this video, by far, is this dude, Northern Calloway. He sings magnificently, his personal style is beyond dope, and in case that wasn't enough to grab your attention, in the 80's he went completely nuts and beat a hostess with an iron rod. According to Wikipedia, he also stole a backpack from a 5th grader, bit his music coordinator, was found wearing nothing but a T-shirt in public, and a bunch of other stuff that makes him "cooler." He was even found in somebody's garage screaming "Help! I'm David from Sesame Street and they're trying to kill me!" which really just clinches it for me. If you're not only convinced that the world is after you, but that you literally just need to get back to Sesame Street, congratulations, you have discovered a new level of awesome. Just kidding everybody, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder really does suck in case you didn't know. Anyways, Mr. Calloway died of apparently mysterious circumstances in January 1990. Item #3: The Honey And then this bitch comes casually strolling along like she doesn't even know she's melting the balls off my dick. Seeing footage of Maria in the 70's feels like regaining and losing my virginity in rapid-fire succession. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. When Maria shows up the dudes literally run up to her from the other side of the set with Gordon's wife getting clearly edged out (hint: that's her behind Northern). Not that I blame them; a young, down-to-earth, good-looking Latina who just wants to help the children is all ANY of us is looking for. Item #4: The Scandal How come Bert let's other puppets get so close to him, but Ernie has to wait until they're behind closed doors before they can be affectionate. Relationship difficulties between Bert and Ernie have been well-documented, but there's no reason for Bert to be so brazen about his infidelities. Think about the kids, Bert. Item #5: Direction At the crescendo of the song, this dude comes out with a cart of fruits and vegetables. It's such a simple image, and yet it makes everything seem so epic. I don't know anything about directing, so I'm going to reserve my comments on that aspect of the video to that point, but I think it's a pretty good indication that there's something good happening there.
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