A ton of excitement in the past couple days about Kamala Harris ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket.
I watched a lot of the news on Sunday afternoon and Monday, and by Monday night I wanted to write something. I sang what I put together on Tuesday night at Songwriter’s Open Mic. On Friday I posted a video version, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eELuBGWa5Ec
It’s a parody song about Kamala Harris’s candidacy, but the first thing I remembered is that there is a already great parody song about her out there. It’s from about 4 years ago when she was put on the ticket to run as Biden’s VP in 2020. RANDY RAINBOW did one of his great parodies, based on show tunes as he often does, and this time the show was “Camelot” which started its long run on Broadway six decades earlier.
“KAMALA!” was a very clever parody song, and Randy sang it to the tune of the title song. All of his YouTube videos are AMAZING. Here’s his “Kamala”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RbKStEFNT8
“Camelot” the musical was 1960 — also the publication year for a song that I’m using for my own, brand- new parody celebrating Kamala Harris. The song I’m using sold over as million for Jimmy Jones, who co-wrote the song with Otis Blackwell. (And later, Del Shannon had a great version, and later still, James Taylor recorded it, around 1977….)
It’s called HANDYMAN.
In the middle of the night on Sunday, I recalled a refrain that I thought might work for me, which I could hum but I couldn’t remember the song it came from. So I sang it into my phone and right away, “Handyman” came up. A phone really is like having a second brain.
It’s the part that goes Come-A, Come-A, Yay, Yay, etc
And I thought I could work it into some sort of a Kama-Kama_Kamala thing…
The original by Jones and Blackwell, 1960, is based on good old “doo-wop chords,” and fun to play. Here’s the 3 versions that are most revered:
Jimmy Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf6ZuwccJ48
Del Shannon’s version is a little faster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm2svFSCXfY
James Taylor’s is a much slower version and closer in that sense to how I play it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXI43zGeyu4
The first performance of “Kamala Can” was at Songwriters Open Mic (on Zoom) on July 23, 2024. To perform or listen in to the Tuesday virtual open mic’s, get the weekly zoom link and other details by emailing jimnovakmusic (at) gmail (dot) com. Songwriters Open Mic is in its 28th year, welcoming songwriters to play their songs and talk about them as well.
Another parody song of mine, “It’s My Party (and I’ll Lie If I Want To)” is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkl6mwYBYJQ