Prompt: "A song that involves lots of banging"
Selected by Sunny
"Bang the Drum All Day"
Todd Rundgren
The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect, 1982
Listening to this now, I'm not actually sure when I've listened to this whole song all the way through. Have I ever? Surely... but then again, why do I know this song at all? I don't know the work of Todd Rundgren. It's just one of those songs that has seeped in through pop culture... commercials (carnival cruises?), TV shows, the Green Bay Packers touchdown song (go Wisconsin whoo!)
But typically, it's just the chorus. Not even the whole chorus, just like the first two lines of it. I've noticed people just say it on Sunday evening or Monday morning casually, as sort of an exasperated sigh.
You can't blame the impulse though. Something like 4/5 of my friends dislike their jobs, and 1/5 really enjoy it (these are anecdotal and swag numbers at best; as I'd say at work, think of the insight as directional). And banging on a drum, even if you're not an actual drummer, is fun. In the GCN era of video games, Donkey Kong had a series of rhythm games called Donkey Konga, which came with a plastic bongo set. Think Guitar Hero for bongos. Really only the maniacs at the Nintendo company would do something like this. Only the maniacs at the Nintendo company could make it fun.
I appreciate that in the '90s, the Mario and Donkey Kong characters split off to do their own things. The original Donkey Kong arcade game was gauche. Donkey Kong, the character, found great success with the 3d-ish Donkey Kong Country games, while Mario obviously had his thing going. Everyone understood this, which is why you don't see DK clumsily crossing over into the classic 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. But all things erode, which is why the 2023 super mario movie is more like the Smash Bros of movies, except a Smash Bros. match is fun and over in five minutes, not keeping you there for 92.
This whole song is pretty fine I guess. There's not much more depth to it than that chorus, but I guess that's the point.
4 comments:
Not sure why Todd Rundgren has the "official video" on YouTube for this song as a live version. I hate it, and I switched out yours and Sara's videos to get the studio version in here.
Donkey Kong Country (and its two sequels) were formative gaming experiences for me. I had completely forgotten about Donkey Konga until today, though, so thanks for that. Maybe we can get a live-action Donkey Konga-style music biopic starring John Leguizamo, Fiona Shaw, and Fisher Stevens. Set in a '90s futuristic steampunk version of Kong Isle.
Remembering the Donkey Konga controller reminds me that there's a video out there someone of a guy beating Dark Souls while playing it on a Guitar Hero guitar. Give it a google, pretty bonkers stuff.
Song twin <3
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