My daughters have become slightly obsessed with the band Walk Off The Earth. They love “Somebody That I Used To Know” and have fun identifying which person is performing at different points during the song. “That is the first guy with the short hair.” … “This is the one with the long hair singing now.” … “This is the woman singing”. And they still can’t enough of the video. All of us are impressed and slightly amazed that they can all play one guitar together!
So I did a little digging to see what other songs they have done. I came across their cover of “Party Rock” (originally done by LMFAO) which I bought for 49 cents on emusic.com. I thought the girls would love it, since this is a favorite song of theirs these days. No such luck. They were unimpressed and told me that they much prefer the cover done by Alvin & The Chipmunks. Which, thanks to my free month of Spotify “premium”, we get to listen to ALL the time. Joy.
I kept searching and found 2 more songs that I thought they’d enjoy. A cover of “Someone Like You” by Adele and “Little Boxes”, a Pete Seeger tune which my daughters were already familiar with. The Adele cover got mixed reviews (see the video below). Ilana and I gave it a ‘thumbs up’, and to be honest, I was pretty impressed! I especially enjoyed the musical instrument transitions as well as vocal change ups that they did. But Sasha is an Adele junkie and I don’t think anything will ever please her as much as the originals. The cover of “Little Boxes” had us hooked and we had to watch the video a few times before finally going to bed. “They made their guitars out of boxes!” … “She came out of the TV!” … “He was the one who sang first in the ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ video.”
On the ride to school this morning, the request was to listen to “Little Boxes” by WOTE. Thanks to that premium subscription of Spotify, I was able to find the song and play it! In addition to the cover by WOTE, I found many, many other versions. Anybody who has watched the Showtime series Weeds will recall that “Little Boxes” is the song that is played during the opening credits. So after WOTE sang it to us twice, we listened to the original version by Pete Seeger, then a version by Malvina Reynolds and then a cover sung in a spanish accent by Olivia Ruiz. (Can you tell that we have a long ride to school?) Ilana really liked Malvina’s version and Sasha preferred Olivia’s version. But the real hit was when the “Nancy Stoned Version” from the Weeds began to play. Boy, did those girls crack up and the giggling just couldn’t stop. Take a listen to WOTE’s cover as well as the “Nancy Stoned Version” below. I also included WOTE’s cover of Adele’s “Someone Like You”. Enjoy them all…
One parting thought with regard to Walk Off The Earth… I’m beginning to think that there may be more than 10 seconds of fame. I love the creativity that they bring to their videos. Perhaps some day we will get to hear some original work.
My Musical Muses 