There are many sentences I was was sure I would never, ever utter. For example:
“Camping is so awesome!”
“Turn off that musical! Golf is on!”
“If only I could gain some weight.”
But here’s why you should never say never, because look at the sentence I’m uttering today:
“My music video dropped last week.”
Yes, you read that right. My music video. As in, the video in which I am singing and (I use the term very loosely) dancing.
My 16th Minute of Fame
This extraordinary occurrence is the final piece of the Grand Prize package I received after being crowned the winner of the first-ever “Careoke” competition of The Steve Cochran Show on WGN-Radio, as I told you about in “My 15 Minutes of Fame.”
I was thrilled at the wonderful two-night stay at the loop Hilton, along with dinner at Kitty O’Shea’s, but the best part of the prize was the chance to do an original music video with John Da Cosse, the morning show team member and comedian who served as host and judge of the competition. Driving down to the Trib Tower for the second time in as many weeks (but this time after the sun had come up), I wondered exactly what we’d be doing. All I knew was that John had written an original song for us, which would involve both time in the recording studio as well as video segments.
Some people might be worried about going into something so blindly, but not me. After listening to John on the radio, and then meeting him in person at the finals, one thing was clear… we were going to be a great creative team and completely compatible. After all, we both have that same rare, really sophisticated sense of humor.
Nobody Said Anything About Rapping
After a fantastic VIP tour of WGN, I sat down with John to get to work. That’s when he told me he had rewritten the lyric to Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off“ as our music video. Well, on the bright side, at least I knew who that was, but I didn’t think I knew the song. We pulled up the video, and although it was somewhat familiar, that’s when the real panic set in.
I had arrived at WGN ready to rock and roll… or show tune, or even do the revised and expanded version of my winning entry, “The Steve Cochran Fight Song,” which I had in my back pocket just in case. Instead, I was going to have to learn a song that was way out of my comfort zone.
And before I sang, I had to master a lengthy (hang onto your hats) rap section. Because, let’s face it… when you think “rap,” you think “old fat white Irish grandma.”
Magic Time with the Pros
Well, my panic was for naught. Because when you work at WGN, you work with pros. John had it all figured out, and did a great job of teaching it to me. Then we went into the studio, where a professional sound engineer patiently guided me along, and then magically took the best sections of each of the takes to create a usable finished product.
After that, we were ready for our close-ups, and the fantastic cameraman who filmed the careoke finals did a great job of capturing all of our silliness from every needed angle, and later put it all together to meld wonderfully with the vocals.
So here it is, my debut (and likely final) music video, which you’ll see isn’t so much “Shake it Off” as it is “Off Their Rockers.”
I figure if nothing else, I can cross something off my bucket list that I didn’t even know was on there to begin with. Plus if I ever do another music video, now I have a cool rap name.
Just call me Gaelic Grammy.
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