Our kids auditioned and were selected to be in a Sandy City play that will be performed in June. The play is centered around the Beatles and features many of their songs. After the first night of practice, the kids were told that the director would like them to be the featured singers of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". Not knowing the song, Sarah went home googled the song.
With the kids in front of the computer screen, they watched a youtube video someone had made of the song. Imagine Sarah and the kids watching a video of a young man asking a girl on a date, and then when the girl opens the door "Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer come down upon her head. Clang! Clang! Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that she was dead." The screen turns red, and the scene is of the girl sprawled out on the floor.
The upbeat tune has contradictory lyrics about a young medical student who murders his girlfriend, then a teacher, and then the judge. It's a vaudevillian-style song that was written by the Beetles as a tongue-in-cheek message relating that sometimes bad things happen out of the blue. I've added the song to our playlist at the left of our blog if you are interested.
At the next practice, the kids learned the dance steps to the song as a group, and it is being presented in a humorous way, as reflected in the tune. Steve Martin has a video version of the song that is not as violent as some of the other youtube videos. Jeremie's favorite is the video with a man dressed as the girlfriend, and the man's handpuppet is the judge.
After learning the dance steps, the kids told the director they would rather be dancers in the song rather than featured singers, and the directer seemed to agree that they would be good dancers for the piece. Anyway, with the song portrayed as a comical dance, our concerns are reduced a little.
After that first night and seeing what song our kids are involved with, we scanned the program to see what other Beetles songs might be performed. The popular drug songs "Yellow Submarine" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" are notably missing. So my observation is, I guess that it is better to sing about a serial killer than popularizing drugs.
With the kids in front of the computer screen, they watched a youtube video someone had made of the song. Imagine Sarah and the kids watching a video of a young man asking a girl on a date, and then when the girl opens the door "Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer come down upon her head. Clang! Clang! Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that she was dead." The screen turns red, and the scene is of the girl sprawled out on the floor.
The upbeat tune has contradictory lyrics about a young medical student who murders his girlfriend, then a teacher, and then the judge. It's a vaudevillian-style song that was written by the Beetles as a tongue-in-cheek message relating that sometimes bad things happen out of the blue. I've added the song to our playlist at the left of our blog if you are interested.
At the next practice, the kids learned the dance steps to the song as a group, and it is being presented in a humorous way, as reflected in the tune. Steve Martin has a video version of the song that is not as violent as some of the other youtube videos. Jeremie's favorite is the video with a man dressed as the girlfriend, and the man's handpuppet is the judge.
After learning the dance steps, the kids told the director they would rather be dancers in the song rather than featured singers, and the directer seemed to agree that they would be good dancers for the piece. Anyway, with the song portrayed as a comical dance, our concerns are reduced a little.
After that first night and seeing what song our kids are involved with, we scanned the program to see what other Beetles songs might be performed. The popular drug songs "Yellow Submarine" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" are notably missing. So my observation is, I guess that it is better to sing about a serial killer than popularizing drugs.
1 comment:
I don't think I'd ever heard that song before or even heard of that song before. It does seem like a very interesting choice for a kids' program. That's awesome that your kids have that opportunity to be on stage though!
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