Johannes Schult

Jutze cooks (and eats) the infamous macaroni/cheese/yoghurt dish. Yummy?

This is a short ode to the TV series 24. It’s about Renee Walker in particular. And I inserted a birthday greeting to Annie Wersching, the actress who plays Agent Walker. If you don’t understand anything of what I just wrote, let it suffice that this is a fanboy song. Again, the 52-second limit comes in handy, forcing me to concentrate on the essential message. Not that the song contains an important message. But when I found out about Wersching’s birthday this morning, I figured that this is the best time for such a song. I also made a little video of me singing the song a bit slower, a half-step higher and just with the acoustic guitar.

By the way, I was thrilled to incorporate a reference to bloody stumps; you see, eleven years ago, when I first accessed the internet, the bloody stump homepage taught me a lot about this new medium, all of which is still true today.

#13 Dear Screenwriters (Happy Birthday, Annie Wersching)

Dear screenwriters of 24
Please don’t kill Renee Walker
I’m sure there are many more
People like me who ♥ her
Despite all her flaws
And the way she handles thumbs
But who hasn’t bent the laws?
And who doesn’t like bloody stumps?

So happy birthday to you
Annie Wersching, who played
Renee Walker so real and true
Here’s to her surviving season eight
She’s the best red-haired woman on screen
Since Lena Headey played Luce
The red-haired flower queen
In the movie Imagine Me & You

Dear screenwriters of 24
Please don’t kill Renee Walker

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

This one started out with vocals. The melody still hints at the title, which I just kept, because I was running out of time to think of something else. A while ago I was looking at the sky and beheld shifting clouds (see video below). It was there that I came up with the title. I intended to make it a song with space between parts and notes. It ended up being rather packed, anyway. I also admit that the verse uses the same chords as “1998” (which Manticess made for Song Fu last year) and that the middle part is basically the bridge from “The Flower Song“. The end result justifies the self-citations, I think. The main reason I omitted the vocals was that I’m not a good singer. But I also figured there’s a pattern in the previous tracks (except for the first one): every third tune is an instrumental. And I’m a sucker for patterns. And, as I said, a bad singer, who didn’t want to spend what’s left of his weekend failing to sound fragile.

#12 Clouds Are Passing by

This is another example of why I like the 52-second format: If this lonely hearts ad was any longer, people would actually start taking it seriously. I was somewhat uncertain about the exact wording, the organ in the background and the main chord sequence (D G E A was in there at one point). But I think, the song works in its present form (p < 0.05). The concept of the song was inspired by an old statistics lecture that featured remarks about Love@Lycos, matching algorithms and bootstrapping.

#7 Lonely Hearts Ad (Bootstrapping)

I’m looking for a woman who is capable of bootstrapping, yeah
I don’t care if she’s tall or thin or if her hair is red

It’s good for a romantic relationship to be based on common interests, yeah
Even though I’m the first to admit that bootstrapping’s uncommon

This statistical procedure
Is an important feature
Of our future late-night conversations

I’m looking for a woman who is capable of bootstrapping, yeah
If we can figure out bootstrapping we can figure out everything else

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

I just recorded a video of me playing the song at home:

This one was inspired by Paul and Storm as well as Tim Minchin. It took me some time to shorten it to the appropriate length. Who needs middle parts, anyway? I can imagine this one a little bit slower with a Beatles-vibe, especially if I were to add drums. My current recording is raw, just the keyboard and the vocals, all in one take, using one microphone. Thus, also no stereo mix this time. I had wanted to write a chorus that is more subtle, more like “Let’s pretend it’s there, even though we know better” or something like that. But it’s Sunday already and my initial song idea still has no lyrics. The video below shows me recording the track. Nothing spectacular, just the 37th take, give or take a few.

#4 Your Love Is Like a Serving of Fries That’s Too Large

Your love is like a serving of fries that’s too large
Your love is like King Henry’s seventh wife
Your love is like a useful guidance counsellor
Your love is like the afterlife
It doesn’t exist
It doesn’t exist
I looked everywhere
Around the world
It’s just not there
Life ain’t fair

Your love is like good plot ideas in Episode I
Your love is like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
Your love is like the holy father and his son
Your love is like the rhyming end of this line, yeah
It doesn’t exist
It doesn’t exist
I looked everywhere
Even under your chair
It’s just not there
Life ain’t fair

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

For the lack of other news, here’s a song by Jonathan Coulton. I chose the ASL video by Stephen Torrence to go with it, because his face expressions are awesome. The choice was a difficult one, because there’s other nice ones like Christmas lights, Muppets and plenty of live versions.

Also, check out the two new Ninja Dolls songs – good, friendly punk rock.

Russ Rogers (of Gödz Pöödlz) said it much better than I ever could. Please read on:

The first challenge for Masters of Song Fu #5 was posted last week. The challenge was to write a song based on one Mole-man from a list of 700 Mole-men created by John Hodgman. (Hodgman is the “I’m a PC”-guy from the Mac ads. You’ve seen him on the Daily Show. He’s got two books out. The Mole-men are from his second book, “More Information Than You Require”.)

The first round songs are now posted and ready for your votes. The songs are phenomenally creative and diverse. Seriously, a good crop.

http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/2009/11/17/song-fu-5-round-1-voting/

You can vote ONLY once, but you can vote for up to FIVE different songs.

So take some time to listen to at least part of every song. There are 33, so it will take a little time. Listen closely to ALL of the songs you like. Then, choose your TOP FIVE SONGS and vote for them.

You can even download ALL the songs for FREE!

You will receive Special Silver Bonus Points in Heaven if you comment at the bottom of the Song Fu page. This can be as brief or as in depth as you like. But speaking from experience, one person taking the time to comment on my song with either praise or constructive criticism was worth more than 50 votes to me! You’re comment could be as simple as listing the five songs you voted for. If you want to be more complex, give your reasons and mention the songs that almost got your vote (the ones you wish you had more votes to give). Try to stay positive or constructive.

Extra Special Heavenly GOLDEN Points are awarded to folks who encourage other folks to check out the songs and vote. Post it to your facebook status. Twitter about it. Blog about it. Make sure you link to the Song Fu site. Talk about Song Fu. This is a concept that deserves viral attention from the Hive-Mind.

Masters of Song Fu is a special contest. There is NO prize money involved. The songwriters are doing this out of love for their craft and in the hopes that SOMEONE will notice, enjoy and appreciate their efforts.

So take some time, VOTE, COMMENT and POST about the contest.

This is the first of 3 preliminary rounds of voting. The Challenger with the most cumulative votes after 3 rounds will meet a Super-secret Champion, “The Master of Song Fu” in a final head-to-head challenge for the title and trophy of Master of Song Fu!

Voting will end this Saturday, November 21 at 11:59 PM EST.

The website’s system is designed to lock out IP Addresses that have already voted. So, when I say you can only vote once, technically it means that each computer only gets one chance to vote. Sometimes the voting system gets locked up, allowing NOBODY to vote for a while. Don’t let this frustrate you. Just come back another time and vote. You can always leave a comment, even when the voting system is SNAFU.

Thanks for Supporting Song Fu. Now, got Vote, Comment and Post.

This being quoted, and yes, I second every word Russ wrote, here’s a list of my six favourite entries, followed by the video Susanne and I shot last Sunday to go with our own entry, “423. Red” by Manticess.

• Caleb Hines
• Joe “Covenant” Lamb
• Lex Vader
• Gorbzilla
• Spencer Sokol
• Sara Parsons

John Green commented on my recent video:

Wow, this is amazingly awesome. Favorited. And yes, this totally wins a book. Message me your address. Thanks for being awesome; this made my day!

How very flattering! A great way to start my week; looks like I’ll soon have Paper Towns. Then Hank Green‘s song The List will hopefully make sense to me. Meanwhile, I made a list of all the other books I sang about. The links are mainly to Wikipedia articles, because there readers can easily switch from German to their preferred language. Funnily, most (but not all) of my very favourite books ended up at the very beginning.

• Michael Ende: Momo
• Dar Williams: Lights, Camera, Amalee
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Die Physiker
• Kevin Smith: Clerks & Chasing Amy
• Javier Marias: Mein Herz so weiß
• Italo Calvino: Wenn ein Reisender in einer Winternacht
• Kurt Vonnegut: Galapagos
• Stanislaw Lem: Die Stimme des Herrn
• John Green: Looking for Alaska
• John Green: An Abundance of Katherines
• Neil Gaiman: American Gods
• Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman: Zits
• Elke Niedermair & Michael Niedermair: LaTex. Das Praxisbuch
• Jeanette Winterson: The PowerBook
• Neil LaBute: Reasons to Be Pretty
• Scott Westerfeld: Pretties
• Alfred Hamerle & Peter Kemény: Mathematik
• Joseph LeDoux: The Emotional Brain
• J.R.R. Tolkien: Der Herr der Ringe
• Hubert Schleichert: Wie man mit Fundamentalisten diskutiert, ohne den Verstand zu verlieren: Anleitung zum subversiven Denken
• Ambrose Bierce: The Devil’s Dictionary
• Terry Pratchett: Einfach göttlich
• Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion
• The complete works of William Shakespeare
• Gero von Randow: Das Ziegenproblem
• Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner & Rob Sitch: Molwanîen. Land des schadhaften Lächelns
• Joyce Thompson: Wunschweltende
• David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas
• Rick H. Hoyle, Monica J. Harris & Charles M. Judd: Research Methods
• Suzanne Collins: Catching Fire
• William Strunk, Jr. & E.B. White: The Elements of Style
• Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead

In response to John Green’s offer to give away a copy of his latest book Paper Towns I wrote a song about me not having said book. Yet. I have his previous two books, though. If you haven’t heard of John Green, I suggest you check out An Abundance of Katherines. It features eloquent German insults, but is ultimately a young adult novel. With math.

Writing the lyrics to this song was fun, because I could arrange the actual books accordingly. Once I had recorded everything I made a little video to illustrate this process – and also to clarify what I’m actually singing about.

Download “I Have Many Books (But I Don’t Have Paper Towns Yet)”: mp3 (more music)

I have the best German fairytale, the best Scholastic book
I have comedies and screenplays that are really, really good
I have My Heart So White and a book about you
About the end of the world and about aliens, too
I have Looking for Alaska as you can see
An Abundance of Katherines belongs to me
I have many books from A to Z
But I must confess I don’t have Paper Towns, yet

I have books that sound dirty but are really all right
I have books that sound nerdy but are dirty inside
I have Reasons to Be Pretty, I have reasons to be smart
I have books about emotion but none about art
I have Looking for Alaska as you can see
An Abundance of Katherines belongs to me
I have many books some of which are red
But I must confess I don’t have Paper Towns, yet

I have The Devil’s Dictionary and books about Gods
The complete works of Shakespeare, a book about odds
I have books that are funny and some that are sad
Some are amazing and some are rather bad
I love Catching Fire; I wonder how it ends
I have The Elements of Style in your pants
I have Looking for Alaska as you can see
An Abundance of Katherines belongs to me
And for full disclosure I also have The Fountainhead
But as of now I don’t have Paper Towns, yet

(words and music by Johannes Schult)