In this blog series I’ve been telling the story of how a hit song is made. A hit song that is not yet a hit song, mind you. But if the story is true about the large family in Tennessee that thrives entirely on the royalties generated by “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”, then I want to be on track to create a hit song that is only slightly stupider than that one.
My song is called “Poopy Diaper”. So far I’ve outlined how it was conceived creatively and the business strategy behind its launch. Today I want to talk about the cast of characters involved in the making of this cultural masterpiece.
Co-producer Vance Kelly and I met while I was playing keyboards for a Jimmy Buffett tribute band named A1A. Vance was a founding member of the band and was in fact its original keyboard player. But in order to fully flourish in his new role as “managing impresario”, the bandmembers thought it best if someone other than Vance worried about flawlessly performing the glockenspiel part in “Come Monday” while wearing a tropical shirt.
Vance had extensive experience as a sound engineer and had done a phenomenal job mixing A1A’s live album. So when he asked if I needed production help on any of my music I couldn’t say “yes” fast enough.
Having a co-pilot is essential for me when a producing a track. The world is full of geniuses who can lock themselves in a dark room alone for days at a time, write music and be happy as a clam (Tom Scholz anyone?).
I am not one of those people. I am a social creature who has had enough “greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts” moments with fellow musicians to know that my brain alone cannot get it done. Others must be involved and their input is critical. Therefore Vance’s entreprenurial passion for producing a great product and wearing any hat necessary made him indespensible to this recording project.
Marcus Beck is currently a rising senior at Centennial High School in Roswell, GA and one of its star varsity football players. What many of those football parents do not know is that he’s a phenomenal rapper – the kind of freestyle rapper who can spit out rhyme after rhyme in a way that’s relevant, emotional, well-crafted and genuinely moving.
My teenage son Josh, a linebacker on the same football team and also a vocalist on “Poopy Diaper”, once hosted a jam session with Marcus on vocals. I watched awestruck as Marcus flowed with a live band, improvised words from his head and matched the musicians’ intensity with complete confidence.
So what better way to reward that kind of talent than by involving him in a project the world will never forget called “Poopy Diaper”? The 16-bars of the song over which Marcus raps is absolutey awesome.
Then there’s the “gang sing” section in the song that required a bunch of dudes to yell. We had Josh, Marcus and their football buddies show up at Vance’s home studio, eat a disturbing amount of pizza and lay down a bunch of loud, out-of-tune vocal parts. That night was, to me, was the most fun part of our little project. Their names of these young men have been withheld because I haven’t had a chance to ask their parents for permission to list them here.
When the subject matter in question is the containment of feces, it just seems prudent to ask. It’s on my to-do list.
Which leads me to our lead vocalist. We’ll call her Anonymous. She laid down all the vocal tracks in one evening. In the time we’ve known eachother Anonymous and I have had many fun conversations where we’ve dreamed about being rich and famous.
With a song like this, however, Anonymous just wants to stick with rich.
Stay tuned for my next installment of this blog series when I discuss the publication of our beloved ditty. ‘Til next time!
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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 28,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com. 
