Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes a song will have that one part that I kind of obsess with more than the rest. As a kid, back when Wayne’s World was the big thing, I’d feel like I was waiting out Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” for that section towards the end where it picks up and starts talking about devils and the fandango and whatnot. And while I’ve always loved Alice in Chains’ “Rooster”, it’s really the intro and outro that act as the star of that song.

There are times when I only hear a brief snippet of a song and find myself wanting more, whether it be part of a full-fledged song, a commercial or a cover medley. It’s kind of like how awesome it was when Eric Cartman sang “Poker Face” on South Park that they eventually released a full version for Rock Band. That was a dream come true.

Here are six other songs I would have killed for seeing expanded into something bigger.

6) The Snickers Carpool Singing “Greensleeves”

A few years ago, Snickers had a beautiful ad campaign about a Viking, a pilgrim, a Hawaiian dude, Henry VIII and Caesar on a road trip to Asgard, enjoying the FEAST of Snickers all the way. This led to a commercial where Henry VIII reminisces about how he used to have a troupe of minstrels sing to him when he’d eat. The Hawaiian dude, who hasn’t said a single word or done a single thing in all the other commercials ever since being picked up, starts singing “Greensleeves” with a most beautiful voice. After a moment of confusion, everyone joins in.

I’m inexplicably intrigued with Henry’s reaction when the singing starts. He freezes up like he either doesn’t know what the fuck is going on or he’s getting overly wistful. Then the comradery kicks in and I smile every time.

Coincidentally, the awesome “Every Man has a Plan” theme that played in the first commercial was released in full, which is sadly gone from YouTube.

5) Weird Al’s Polka Cover of “Chop Suey”

Weird Al Yankovic is known for tossing polka medleys onto most of his albums, usually to touch on songs from the era he didn’t get around to parodying. They tend to be catchy, though not especially spectacular compared to his other stuff. Off his album Poodle Hat, he sang a medley called “Angry White Boy Polka” featuring everything from “Down with the Sickness” to “Real Slim Shady”. 50 seconds into this song, he sings a really unique take on System of a Down’s “Chop Suey” that I’d love to hear a full version of.

Similarly, I would really love to hear more from his polka cover of “Blame it on the Alcohol” off his last album.

4) The Second Part of Wings’ “Band on the Run”

I’m not saying “Band on the Run” is a bad song or anything, but it does feel like a bunch of different songs shoved into each other. It’s a solid song preceded by an intro that’s a little too mellow and a secondary intro that’s groovy as all get out.

It’s there for less than a minute, but the, “If I ever get out of here!” section of the song really feels like it can stand on its own and not be a transitional piece. It’s like a first verse that gets forgotten about so they can go into a completely different tune.

3) The Second Version of the Corre Theme Song

For those of you who don’t follow the wrestling, the Corre was a group of four bad guys who hung out together and kinda trailed off into obscurity while breaking up. To wrestling fans, they were mostly remembered for having a million theme songs. It seems that every week, they’d have a new take on their theme “End of Days” by a different group with a different style. They went through six or seven versions before sticking to one that was decent enough and leader Wade Barrett kept it when the group broke apart.

The best version by far was the second one where it had just enough of a pulse and felt exciting while rocking just as hard. It was replaced a week or so later by a slower and “ominous” version that itself was replaced. Since these weren’t important as the final theme, they never saw fit to release the full versions on iTunes and the best we could get was someone mixing the snippet of song into a loop.

2) Mastadon’s “One”

I’ve never been big into Mastadon and I’ve never played Army of Two, but I absolutely fell in love with the commercial for the game where Mastadon covered Three Dog Night’s “One” (or Harry Nilsson’s. Whatever), replacing, “It’s just no good anymore since you went away,” with, “It’s just no good anymore… IT’S JUST NO GOOD ANYMORE!”

I was excited because surely if this band did such a high-profile commercial, there had to be some kind of full version of “One”. Right? Maybe it was coming down the pipeline.

Nope! It was just the 30 seconds with no intention of ever making a full cover. Damn.

1) Ramones’ “Big Empty”

Back in the day, the MTV Movie Awards was something I looked forward to every year. The show was ridiculously tongue-in-cheek and gave us such memorable moments as Samuel L. Jackson singing the theme to Dawson’s Creek and Adam West as Batman as a vampire trying to feast on his interviewer Frank Gorshin.

The 1995 show, hosted by Jon Lovitz and Courtney Cox because why not, featured the nominees for Best Song from a Movie being presented by the Ramones. The Ramones announced them via a punk medley with some of their own songs mixed in there. While not the best medley in the world, it’s super absurd and features them singing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” by Elton John, “Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon” by Urge Overkill, “I’ll Remember” by Madonna and “Regulate” by Warren G. While that’s insane on its own, I have a soft spot for their version of Stone Temple Pilots’ “Big Empty”, which was nominated due to the Crow.

I like STP, but “Big Empty” was always low on the list for me. Something about the Ramones’ energy makes me really get into this version and if anything, I’d love to see at least SOME KIND of full-length punk cover to the song.

Are there any musical crumbs like that that you guys would want to see as a full-fledged song? If so, what?

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Posted in music by Gavok |