January 23, 2007

The Saints go skanking in

My band, The Drafted, is playing this Friday at a north Houston venue called The Meltdown. After the New Orleans Saints' phenomenal season, I was inspired to write a punk rock version of "The Saints Go Marching In."

Before I get to the lyrics, I want to talk about this new software called Power Tab Editor. Power Tab is music software that you can download very easily, for free, that allows the user to notate and play back guitar tabliture (and traditional music notation too). Bands like mine, who are separated by long distances, can write new songs without getting together. After I wrote this rendition I downloaded Power Tab, wrote it out, saved it, and emailed it to all my band members, who also have Power Tab on their computers. They can then open the file on their computer and learn the song, without having to organize a rehearsal. This is not a substitute for band practice, but it is a short cut for song writing, which would normally require a lot of time for the band to get together. So for my band, even though we can't practice altogether all the time, we can at least email each other new material and practice it individually before our short pre-show rehearsals and continue to play new songs for our loyal and ever-growing fanbase.

Anyway, I kept the old first verse and wrote two new verses that apply to 2006-2007:

Oh when the Saints, go marching in
Oh when the Saints go marching in
Oh how I want to be in that number
When the Saints go marching in

I hate the Bears, I hate the Bears
I hate the motherfucking Bears
Oh how I want to go to Chicago
And kill the motherfucking Bears

Oh when the Saints, come back next year
Oh whenthe Saints come back next year
Oh how I want to be in New Orleans
When they win the Super Bowl

(repeat first verse)

1 comment:

"GretnaBlast" said...

Update: for this to work, your bandmates actually have to make an effort to listen to the song and read the music and learn it on their own without being begged to.

Unfortunately our band doesn't work that way.