I can't believe Weird Al or someone similar missed the opportunity

[Moonglum]

To write a parody called We Are the Borg for that old We Are the World song. It practically writes itself. I'll just do the chorus because I'm too lazy to come up with the whole thing, but if someone wants to run with it, have at it:


Chorus:

We are the borg,
We're a collective,
We are the ones who will assimilate all human beings.
In one voice we're saying
Resistance is futile,
With tubes injected in your neck, a drone you'll beeeeee....



I have no plans on quitting my day job.

 

[fireproof78]

write a parody called We Are the Borg for that old We Are the World song

Biggest thing for Weird Al and other parody song writers is can they get the rights, and will it be big enough to entertain a larger audience.

There are a few parody potentials I've thought of but they really are only for me and my friends or people with similar warped senses of humor.

But, then, I'm the guy who busted up laughing at Weird Al's appearance as a meditation/yoga teacher and had this joke:
Weird Al: Namaste, Storybots.
Storybot character: oh, we loved to but we can't.

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[Moonglum]

Funny and educational!

 

[CoveTom]

Biggest thing for Weird Al and other parody song writers is can they get the rights, and will it be big enough to entertain a larger audience.

Parody and satire are explicitly protected in the law as fair use. You don't have to secure the rights to do a parody of something.

 

[fireproof78]

Parody and satire are explicitly protected in the law as fair use. You don't have to secure the rights to do a parody of something.

Weird Al usually does though. He's funny that way.

 

[Gaith]

Parody and satire are explicitly protected in the law as fair use. You don't have to secure the rights to do a parody of something.

If you use someone's melody, even if you rewrite the words, you can't sell the result without permission, because it's not your melody. Weird Al has a number of songs in which the melodies are only reminiscent of artists or styles, but that's another matter. (And, of course, he sells his songs, parodies or not.)

In high school, I once wrote a "Let it Be" parody called "Make it So." It was mildly amusing.

 

[Lynx]

To write a parody called We Are the Borg for that old We Are the World song. It practically writes itself. I'll just do the chorus because I'm too lazy to come up with the whole thing, but if someone wants to run with it, have at it:


Chorus:

We are the borg,
We're a collective,
We are the ones who will assimilate all human beings.
In one voice we're saying
Resistance is futile,
With tubes injected in your neck, a drone you'll beeeeee....



I have no plans on quitting my day job.

Ha, ha!

I wrote something similar for Deep Space Nine when I constructed a song ensemble of five Vorta characters called The Vortas, slightly inspired by the 60's somg group The Mamas and The Papas and wrote some new lyrics to the song "Monday Monday", renaming it "Founder Founder".

Maybe too off-topic to go too much into it here on the TNG forum.

However, here is a link:

November at Quark's, where the action is!

Hello, Quark here! During November we have a lot of action coming up at Quark's Like our November entertainment evenings each Saturday. We kick off the evening with our magnificent piano player Odo who will perform the songs of Jerry Lee Lewis! Then we have our recent hitmaker,our old...

www.trekbbs.com

Scroll down the page, past the first advertise about The Vortas and to the lower half of the page. There you have the lyrics for the song!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'm not speaking for Weird Al, I've no idea what his thoughts on the subject are, even if I did, I don't think I'd do that, and I'm not speaking for anyone else.

But if it were I making the decision of whether to produce and publish a parody of "We Are the World," I'd pass.

Why? Because there are some songs whose message shouldn't be interfered with in any way, or corrupted if you will. This is one of them. It appears that the humanitarian efforts, which were the whole reason for the song in the first place, were and continue to be successful and have saved many lives, not only in Africa but in the USA.

Just speaking for myself, I don't see anything to be made fun of here. And I'm not trying to be a killjoy. I'm not speaking for Weird Al, but I am saying that I think it's possible that not wanting to be thought of as someone who interferes with this kind of charity might have something to do with not producing a parody of it.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I've written a few Trek lyric parodies - a version of Adele's "Hello" with Uhura on comms, a silly "Jingle Bells" spoof about messing with DNA a la Kelvinverse Khan, and a "Hallelujah" re-work called "Going Boldly". As long as you can adapt it, you'll find someone who likes it.

I've even written a worship song to the tune of the Jurassic Park theme.

 

[CoveTom]

If you use someone's melody, even if you rewrite the words, you can't sell the result without permission, because it's not your melody. Weird Al has a number of songs in which the melodies are only reminiscent of artists or styles, but that's another matter. (And, of course, he sells his songs, parodies or not.)

Legally, that is not true, at least in the United States. Otherwise, no one could ever create a parody of a song. The copyright laws are written to specifically remove the need for permission for parody and satire on the assumption that, otherwise, copyright holders would not want to give permission to something that might make fun of their original work.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Yeah, Weird Al doesn't have to ask permission, but he does it anyway. If he gets turned down (Prince, for example, wouldn't let Al do any parodies of his songs) he'll back off, he doesn't have to.

Sometimes he gets turned down and the artist changes their mind. Coolio, for example, initially didn't want Al to do "Amish Paradise" but immediately realized he was kind of being a jerk and let Al do the song. He realized that if Weird Al wants to do your song....THAT's when you've made it big!

That being said....I am the furthest thing from a RATM fan but I really want them to do this. I don't think the actual original artist has ever done one of Al's parodies but if RATM themseles did this song it would be hilarious

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[Cryogenator]

If you use someone's melody, even if you rewrite the words, you can't sell the result without permission, because it's not your melody. Weird Al has a number of songs in which the melodies are only reminiscent of artists or styles, but that's another matter. (And, of course, he sells his songs, parodies or not.)

Neither copied melodies nor commercialization disqualify a work from protection under parody law.

 

[Cryogenator]

Yeah, Weird Al doesn't have to ask permission, but he does it anyway. If he gets turned down (like Prince did, for example)

That's because Prince was one of the most pretentious musicians who ever lived.

He also wouldn't allow his songs to be used in Guitar Hero because he wanted kids to learn to play real guitars instead. People modded his songs in instead.

 

[Gaith]

Neither copied melodies nor commercialization disqualify a work from protection under parody law.

I'm surprised to see that that's correct - though I'd note the defining SCOTUS case establishing that was in '94, long after Al's career got going. He may not have wanted the risk of getting sued and losing.

 

[Timewalker]

Has nobody here heard the term "filk song"?

That's what Weird Al does. He's a professional filker, who just happens to get paid a hell of a lot more than the people who have been doing it for more decades than he has.

 

[Kor]

Weird Al has included passing references to Star Trek in a handful of songs, but when it comes to doing a whole song based on a particular franchise, he seemed to prefer Star Wars ("Yoda" and "The Saga Begins").

Kor

 

[Timewalker]

Weird Al has included passing references to Star Trek in a handful of songs, but when it comes to doing a whole song based on a particular franchise, he seemed to prefer Star Wars ("Yoda" and "The Saga Begins").

Kor

Filk music is a genre that includes more than just Star Trek.

 

[Kor]

Filk music is a genre that includes more than just Star Trek.

Yes but I was addressing OP's original idea which was specific to Star Trek.

Kor

 

[CorporalCaptain]

As a genre, musical parody goes back at least hundreds of years before filk was recognized as a genre. I also thought that filk was explicitly something that you had to do in a filk circle, and nor is all filk musical parody.

 

[Timewalker]

As a genre, musical parody goes back at least hundreds of years before filk was recognized as a genre. I also thought that filk was explicitly something that you had to do in a filk circle, and nor is all filk musical parody.

A filksing is done in a circle at conventions (if you can find a room; there's also a tradition of finding an unused stairway for it*), but that's not the only way that filking itself is done. I've co-written a whole book of filksongs and am still working on others.

*There's a song about fandom and conventions that has a chorus that goes:

"I go for parties in the hallways
And for torrid, brief affairs,
For smoffing in the Con-suite
And for filking on the stairs!"

"Smoffing" is a term that refers to fannish politics. "SMoF" is an abbreviation for "Secret Master/Mistress of Fandom".

Here's a bit of history: Leslie Fish started working on the song "Hope Eyrie" at the same time that she was watching the Apollo Moon landing in 1969. The song was finished and released a few years later. It's an homage to the Apollo program and is a beautiful song.

So you're right to say that filk isn't only parody. Some of it's based on history, and some is based on science. One of my current efforts is about comets and another is about the Rovers on Mars. The latter is to the tune of "Whistling Gypsy Rover" and the former is an original melody I composed.