Freestyle Academy proudly presents
I chose Sia’s “Chandelier” for a couple of reasons. It’s a fairly compelling premise to ask the question “What if this didn’t end so well?”. I wanted to challenge myself in terms of actual ability, – Though I don't think I was quite able to pull this off. And simply, because it’s the first song that I tried that got me any reasonably good lyrics when I tried to rewrite it! Although I obviously respected him massively before this, I have even more respect for Weird Al Yankovich. Making a good, compelling parody song is hard!
For the lyrics, I pulled up the original lyrics and tried to concept what i could replace them with that would be funny. I had a few different ideas, but the one that really stuck was “what if it ended differently?”. I think out of the process of production, my favorite part was the recording itself. I like singing, there’s not much else to say.
This isn’t anywhere near my usual art, which tends to tackle heavier topics, a lot of grief, or just lots of emotion. Unfortunately, I find it hard to do this with a medium that is so heavily associated with comedy, so I just went with the “nonsensical funny” route just so I could submit this assignment and feel good about it. Mostly, I’m proud of the little split before the first chorus with the funny sound effects. A friend (shoutout Ronan, we love collaboration here) offhandedly suggested adding the iconic wilhelm scream somewhere in the song. The idea just kind of stuck in my brain, so I added it! I think it’s what makes people crack up the most when they hear it the first time, and I’m pretty sure it’s just as funny the second listen-through.