Songtwister

It started in my childhood. I had a notebook that I shared with my neighborhood friends Steph and Lenlen. It was like a scrapbook that held pictures we drew and songs we wrote. Songs whose lyrics we changed a bit so that it became our own… different but with no sense. Like changing the lyrics of “Rain” thus making it – “Tears follow me even in my bed and tears are the rain that always fall.” Yeah I know. What the?!? Not that I stopped there.

I became a member of the Science Club in High School, and one of our activities was to tutor less privileged kids. During the planning session, our moderator asked us to come up with a jingle that we could use in teaching Science lessons to kids. With the help of my then bestfriend Lyn, I changed the lyrics of a well-known song and came up with the “Solar System” (sing to the tune of “If We Hold on Together.”)

Don’t lose your way in the solar system
There is the sun, next to it, Mercury
Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter
In between are asteroids
Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto
These are the nine planets.

I was probably proud of that back then, but nowadays, that is the song that cracks everyone up whenever I sing it to them. And the song isn’t supposed to be funny. Not that I stopped there.

I was a college freshman bored to death in Filipino class when I penned this song that works with the tune “Leaving on a Jetplane.”

My bag is packed, I’m ready to go
Sitting here inside the door
I’d love to and can’t wait to say goodbye
But the teacher’s talking, it’s almost noon
My stomach’s grumbling, I gotta eat soon
Already I’m so bored that I could die.

So ring bell, please ring for me
I’m suff’ring here oh can’t you see
Ring now, set me free and let me go.

Not that I stopped there.

I was working in P&G when I got tasked to come up with a presentation for AP big boss Rahul’s despedida. He was leaving P&G in Makati to work for Hershey’s in India, his home country. With a little help from some officemates, I came up with a song that I made a videoke for so that we could sing it to the tune of “Somewhere Down the Road” for him at his party:

You had the right job at the wrong time
Guess we always knew inside
We wouldn’t have you for a long time
Those dreams of yours are shining in chocolate stores
And if they’re calling you away
We have no right to make you stay

But somewhere down the road
Our roads are gonna cross again
It doesn’t really matter when
But somewhere down the road
We know that heart of yours will come to see
That you belong in AP.

A year later, when another boss was moving out of AP to another role in P&G MDO, it was obvious whose role it was again to come up with something. I and a couple of teammates came up with not one, but two “personalized” songs for him. The first one, titled “Always be Your Babies,” we gave to his “kids” and they made a music video for it. The second one which we called “Joel Ko,” we sang live at his despedida party. Listen to both songs in the videos below.

Not that I’ll stop there. 😛