Amish Paradise

The Serene One has tasked me with assembling an ipod playlist for labor and delivery. Not sure if it will actually come in handy, but I think this is his way to keep me from driving him crazy. My anxiety about Bowling Ball Head has morphed into a general grumpiness / moodiness exacerbated by the fact that I can't sleep comfortably for more than two hours at a time.

I asked an old music teacher of mine for some advice. She started a program at Stanford Hospital using portable CD players and selected music to ease pain for patients. (Side note: she said her most reliable piece of music to get a smile of people's faces was John Williams' Romance for Guitar and String Orchestra.) Her advice was to choose something with a strong beat for early labor and that likely the ipod would then be abandoned. She said it would probably be most useful in recovery.

Based on that, I dug up Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" parody of Chamillionaire's Ridin'. It's incredibly funny, and has a nice strong beat. I love that Chamillionaire not only approved it, but posted it on his own MySpace page.

I also broke down and bought another Weird Al favorite of mine: Amish Paradise, based on Coolio's Gangsta Paradise. I remembered there being some controversy about Coolio's reaction so I headed over to the imminently reliable (cough) Wikipedia for a refresher.

Here's what I found:

Although Yankovic traditionally secures permission from the artists he parodies (even though this is not legally required), and was told by his record label that Coolio had given permission, Coolio later claimed that he had not given such permission. This created a minor controversy, as speculation surfaced that Coolio had actually given permission but later claimed he had not in the fear that allowing the parody would not be seen as "cool", or that Yankovic's record label had lied to Yankovic in the hopes that the song would become popular. Yankovic later stated on VH-1's Behind the Music that he had written a sincere letter of apology to Coolio which was never returned, and that Coolio never complained when he received his royalty check from proceeds of the song. A series of photos taken at the XM Satellite Radio booth at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show suggests that Yankovic and Coolio may have made amends.^[1] According to Al, he was as surprised as anyone when Coolio came over to chat.

The most amazing thing that I discovered was:

Both Amish Paradise" and "Gangsta's Paradise" were musically and lyrically inspired by a Stevie Wonder song, "Pastime Paradise" from his 1976 album "Songs in the Key of Life."

Here I was, thinking Coolio was really talented and it's actually Stevie Wonder who should be getting the credit. Honestly, my knowledge of the Stevie Wonder canon has been limited to "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" and "Isn't She Lovely." I'm impressed.