主播大秀

Top 5 - Song Title Letter Change Roulette

• Fraser M
• 12 Dec 06, 05:31 PM

All it takes is a title, and the removal and replacement of one tiny little letter, and you can wreck a song's meaning forever. OH THE POWER!

No. 5: 'Whistle For The Chair'
Oh sure, mucking about with words like this seems like the stupidest and most childish thing to do in the whole world (EVER!). And that, as I'm sure most of you have now worked out, is where ALL THE FUN is.

Take this lilting Fratellis song...You'd be hard-pushed to come up with a convincing explanation of the original title (something about teaching a choir their harmonies non-verbally? A busker doing bird-calls for a visiting singing troupe?), but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun as a song about some farmer fella out on a windswept heath, trying to train his dining room furniture how to herd sheep, now would it?


No. 4: 'Land Of A Thousand Worms'
"Eurgh!" said Jake Shears out of the Scissor Sisters, as the plane touched down at Wrigley Airport, "it looks like the runway is covered in...WHAT THE HELL? GET THESE MOTHERFLIPPING WORMS OFF THE PASSENGER WALKWAY!"

Never mind 'Snakes On A Plane', what if you lived in a land where the humble earthworm was king? They're a bit smaller than snakes, far less threatening and far more squishy...and actually slimy (real snakes aren't, according to people who like to touch real snakes. Although that makes them not the most trustworthy of sources, to my way of thinking). What then, eh? A lovely song by four Elton John juniors in Simon Cowell's most flamboyant trousers, and a lady with a robot arm, that's what.


No. 3: 'The Nose'
Every year it's the same, isn't it? Summer turns to autumn and then on to winter, the leaves turn from green to brown and drop off their branches, and your body turns from a bronzed temple to human health into a pasty white sack of phlegm, racked by coughing spasms and sporting the kind of glowing red nostrils that could guide Santa's sleigh from here to Istanbul.

So you'd think, this being such a common occurence, that someone would've mentioned it in song form before now, wouldn't you? Sadly not. So hats off to Westlife for taking the time to perform this ode to the nation's cold-sufferers. They shall not toil (or sneeze, cough and otherwise snot up) in vain!

No. 2: 'Welcome To The Quack Parade'
OK, so there were two letters changed that time, but you have to admit it's worth it. It's all very well writing a rock opera about a dying man and the stuff that flashes before his eyes in his last seconds on Earth, Mr Way, but what about something for the little kiddies, mm?

Let's imagine a world where My Comical Robo-pants release a song about a boy who's banged his head, and just before he cries out for his mummy, he sees a line of ducks playing brass band music on their beaks. At the back is one particularly fat duck, and he's doing the bass part in a cute 'oompah-oompah' style, while his tunic buttons groan under the strain from his big tummy. Can't you hear the drooling over the film rights at Disney-Pixar even now?

And straight in at No.1...'Pips Don't Lie'
After confusing the world with this tale of body parts and their ability to tell the truth (or otherwise), it's only right and proper that the Shakster should make amends by lending her sexy tune to a fruit-awareness campaign.

Naturally that doesn't mean a campaign in which people are tested on whether they can tell an apple from a banana, it's one of those Jamie Oliver healthy eating sort of things. And the best way anyone can demnonstrate that they've been eating fruit is if there's a little pile of left-over pips or skins on their desk/dinner plate/bedroom floor. They don't lie, y'see? It's CLEVER.

Read the TOTP Online Top 5 archive...