New Music Wednesday: In Honor of Gwen

Two weeks ago, Gus’ mom Gwen came to visit us! She and Gus got to spend Thursday and Friday hanging out, while I sadly had to work. Since it wasn’t a holiday, we really didn’t have much of an agenda for the visit. We decided we just wanted to give Gwen a taste of what we do regularly in Seattle. We hit up trivia on Thursday and bingo on Friday. Then on Saturday, we bounced up to the San Juan islands for some exploring and whale watching! We couldn’t have asked for a better day – Clear as a bell and very sunny. We found orcas after about 1.5 hours out on the boat and were able to hang out with them for almost an hour! The guides were able to identify approximately 13 different whales, and they jumped and swam around our boat forever. There was even an adorable baby orca who repeatedly jumped out of the water over and over! It was amazing. They are such beautiful creatures, and it’s hard to fully understand until you see them up close like this… however, I’ll save the “Save the whales” speech for another post.

You’re probably asking yourselves, what this has to do with my normal musical-themed Wednesday posts (Yeah, I’m behind on them too). Well, Friday bingo nights are really bingo + karaoke! This amazing event is held on the last Friday of every month at one of our local senior centers. It’s multi-generational, which I absolutely love, and everyone gets involved! Old and young alike get up and stretch out their vocal chords in between bingo rounds.

When we took Gwen, this younger guy (20s-30s?) got up in front of the crowd and sang “My Humps” originally by the Black Eyed Peas. However, this particular rendition was created by Alanis Morrissette as an April Fools’ Day prank in 2007. It’s the ballad version! Yes, you heard me right. Ballad. Slow. Normally a style reserved for love songs, sad songs, etc. Anyone that knows this song, however, knows it is anything but those descriptors. The entire room was howling on the floor in laughter during the entire song, and the guy got a standing ovation! If you are into karaoke, I highly recommend adding this to your repetoire. I promise you’ll be memorable.

So, without further ado, I give you the ballad version of My Humps, followed by the real version for comparison’s sake. I hope you enjoy!