Today’s my birthday and blogging has taken a back seat to chatting with family and hanging out with my husband on a fall colors drive. The colors in Central Minnesota around our many lakes are particularly vibrant this year. Sorry, no pics. I was too busy enjoying the drive.
I have kept this quick, lighthearted blog post in my back pocket for a few weeks now, waiting for a moment when I wanted to deploy a blog post without thinking too hard about it.
I want to share a few songs and videos by Devin Townsend because they make me laugh. Devin, or Devy, as he is known, has an incredible range in the types of music he writes and performs, from thrashy-growly metal to Enya-esque mood music to operatic songs that could serve as movie scores. He’s very serious about his music and never seems to stop producing. During the pandemic, he’s been hard at work whipping up new music at home, even though he was on tour with a brand new double-album, Empath, as the pandemic hit and sent everyone into quarantine.
While Devin is serious about his music, he doesn’t take himself seriously. He performs with abandon and can unhitch propriety as needed. The songs below show his silly side.
During quarantine, Devin produced a cover version of the Vengaboys’ “We Like to Party” with Che Aimee Dorval providing vocals. This is so catchy! (“We like to potty, we like, we like to potty!”)
Remember novelty songs of the 1960s and ’70s? My dad had an album of them that was a stitch. One of the songs on the album (of course it was vinyl) was “Witch Doctor.” Devin created his own cover of “Witch Doctor.” Another very catchy song, but hard to sing as fast as he does.
Devin has an official video for his song “Lucky Animals,” but it is the unofficial video that makes me laugh whenever I see it. I wish I could dance with such quirky abandon! We could all take lessons from his choreographer to loosen up a bit. 😉
And, finally, here is a clip from Devin’s appearance on Headbanger’s Ball with Steve Vai when Devin looked like a kid. It gave everyone who watched it a taste of what to expect. (Thank goodness for old clips on YouTube!)
Who makes you laugh with their performances? Please share in the comments.