Republican in San Francisco

It’s a new song from the Richter Scales!

Followers of my blog are familiar with how my good friend Mark Casey surprised me on my last birthday with a premiere performance of my string quartet.  This year I managed to surprise him with an original song based on his life as the only person in his zip code who would dare make a case for Sarah Palin occupying a national office (and have enough command of the facts to make you buy it.  For a few minutes at least.)

Although the topic of the song was set from the beginning, the structure was much less clear.  The original title was “The Nicest Republican You’ll Ever Know” with the vague concept of a Republican having a hard time getting a date in San Francisco, but I couldn’t quite get a full song out of it. I had a lot of gags, but no arc, no strong chorus, no song. Then, while driving back from LA (where our previous video, I Got Mail, was playing at the Feel Good Film Festival) I had the idea that this would work well as an barbershop quartet. The structure is quaint, old fashioned, restrictive, and doesn’t require nuance, sophistication, or subtlety.  A perfect fit for the GOP!  (Sorry Mark.  And SPEBSQSA.)

With that inspiration, it took just an hour for all those gags to congeal into a snappy  lyric sheet and then another five or six hours to write and arrange the actual song. I got a few Richter Scales to learn the song just in time to perform it at Mark’s party (in lieu of a speech).

Mark liked the song enough to put some energy into creating a video for it, writing out a list of funny visual gags and hiring a videographer to assemble the imagery. And now, just in time for the midterm elections, we’re proud to present:

Republican in San Francisco

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGDAjwTscmU