Tongue-twisting Sing Alongs

[ckd]

shadesong mentioned trying to keep up with "One Week" and "We Didn't Start The Fire" in the car, which led me to come up with a dozen candidates for "songs that will trip your tongue if you try to sing along". Can you get through the whole half hour?

1. "Confrontation", Les Misérables Original Broadway Cast (try to keep up with Javert and Valjean!)
2. "Hourglass", Squeeze
3. "What About Everything?", Carbon Leaf
4. "One Week", Barenaked Ladies
5. "Your Horoscope For Today", "Weird Al" Yankovic
6. "Can You Picture That?", Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem
7. "We Didn't Start The Fire", Billy Joel (Flash version)
8. "Alphabet Of Nations", They Might Be Giants (WMV of live performance with additional lyrics)
9. "Bruces' Philosophers Song", Monty Python
10. "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)", Simon & Garfunkel
11. "The Elements", Tom Lehrer (Flash version)
12. "Stay", Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories

Comments

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

I can do:
1. "Confrontation", Les Misérables Original Broadway Cast (try to keep up with Javert and Valjean!)
2. "Hourglass", Squeeze (If this is the song I'm thinking of. I have a harder time with "Slap and Tickle")
6. "Can You Picture That?", Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem
7. "We Didn't Start The Fire", Billy Joel (Flash version)

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

Then again I LIKE books like "Fox in Socks"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"He's so unhip, when you say Dylan, he thinks you're talkin' 'bout Dylan Thomas -- whoevah he was. The man ain't got no cultchah."

It may reflect a misspent youth that I have no trouble singing that one. Especially as my misspent youth took place in the '80s and '90s.

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

I can sing along perfectly with 3, 11, and 12. *preens*

[ckd]

2 is "take it to the bridge/throw it overboard/see if it can swim/back up to the shore" etc.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Billy Joel's Angry Young Man is also damn near impossible to keep up with.

[ckd]

Personally, I'd consider that a well-spent youth. After all, I also postdate Bridge Over Troubled Water....

[ckd]

Indeed!

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

I can probably do "We Didn't Start The Fire"; there's a chance I could pull off "Confrontation" but I don't feel like testing it right now because I fear I will crack up hysterically and my roommate is asleep; I might have a chacne at "The Elements" or "One Week" if I had the words in front of me.

[kodi]

I'm not getting how it's possible to sing both parts of "Confrontation."

The song I've been punishing myself trying to wrap my tongue around lately is "Hebridean Hale-Bopp," by Capercaille. That might be easier if I could understand the lyrics.

"Sound System" by Operation Ivy is fairly punishing, too, but it's short enough that you can just stumble over the hard parts and feel like you did alright.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

I think the tricky Weird Al one is that bit in Hardware Store, myself.

[hr-macgirl.livejournal.com]

probably not one you listen to, but "Jacob & Sons/Joseph's Coat" from Joseph & The Amazing (etc) - the Lloyd-Webber/Rice musical is tongue-tripping. Just the thought reeling off the names of all of those brothers causes my mind to hur, and that doesn't even start with the colours in the second half of the song! ruby, olive, violet, fawn, lilac, gold, chocolate, mauve [...]

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Blues Traveler's "Hook" really needs to be on this list.

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

I LOVE that one. I have been able to do that one for many years. It was lots of fun seeing them live and getting to sing it at the concert. :)

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I've heard some of the others, but the only ones I really know are 9 and 11, and I could be wrong about 9. So I'll just say, "no, I can't" unless it's a karaoke situation perhaps.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

My "Minas Ithil" filk (on "Istanbul") is a bit of a tongue tripper too, just because the syllables are somewhat infelicitous, I guess.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

Three others for your list -- "It's the End of the World As We Know It" by R.E.M. and two Springsteen songs: "Blinded By the Light" and "Rosalita".

[schmoomom.livejournal.com]

What, no one has said "Modern Major General" yet, from Pirates of Penzance? And to rwl...I can do End of the World...took me a long time, but I DID it. :-)

[mdyesowitch.livejournal.com]

"Life is a Rock (but the radio rolled me)" by Reunion
"Now that we've Found Love (What are we gonna do with it) " Heavy D. and the Boyz

There's one that on the tip of brain. I may be back!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I was in that musical once... :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

*coughParsleySagecough*

[ckd]

No, I know which album that was on; my point was that I wasn't around during any of the original Simon & Garfunkel release era.

[ckd]

Well, "The Elements" does kind of cover the "Modern Major General" territory....

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Well, the few I know I can keep up with. Then again, I'm a trained classical musician and I'm used to singing fast with lots of words. And let's see.... (just scared the cleaning ladies) ... I can still triple tongue, not that I have instruments anymore.

[drwex]

My father is a G&S fanatic and can, impromptu, sing along with almost any of the male parts in any of the operattas. For words alone he could likely keep up with the female parts but he gets lost trying to stay on tune.

[jss]

My chorus sang that in high school. With a little practice, it's not that hard.

[jss]

Animaniacs, specifically Wakko's "All the US Capitols" (which isn't that hard when done slowly) and Yakko's "All the Nations of the World" (and later, "All the Words in the English Language").

[drwex]

The "We Didn't Start the Fire" Flash is awesome. I'm surprised you didn't list REM's "It's the End of the World As We Know It". One of the gratifying moments of my life was watching them do that live and seeing Michael Stipe using a cheat sheet for the lyrics.

[ckd]

Yeah, I'm not sure how I missed that one either.

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

"La Vie Boheme", from RENT.

(I can't believe I didn't think of this one earlier.)

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Why isn't there any They Might Be Giants on that list? Wouldn't "Mrs. Train" qualify? Or "Rhythm Section Want Ad"?

[ckd]

Track 8?

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Damn. And we've just been listening to/watching it, too. What's wrong with me?

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, I should have added Tribe's "Joyride (I Saw The Film)" to the list too. It took me days to master the chorus.

Tongue-twisting Sing Alongs

[(Anonymous)]

The Monkees did a song called 'Going Down'. Not only does Micky sing fast but it has a nice tune. His pronounciation is perfect.

'Blinded by the light' by Manfred Mann is a tongue twister with many rhyming words.