Monthly Archives: December 2010

“Step Into Christmas” (Elton John Christmas Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Christmas 2010 edition of the Laptop Sessions with Jim Fusco!  I couldn’t let the Christmas Season go by without presenting a cover song music video for you, so I present Elton John’s Christmas classic “Step Into Christmas”.

You know, growing up, I never loved this song.  I think my father wasn’t a huge fan of it, so that tainted my view.  But, as time went on (and I became a bigger Elton John fan) I realized that this is a pretty great tune.  In it, Elton says, “I’d like to thank you for the year.”  Obviously, he’s talking to his many fans and I’d like to do the same: THANK YOU for another great year here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!  In the past year, I’ve seen the term “Laptop Sessions” come up as a search suggestion in Google.  That’s pretty cool and means that plenty of people have been searching for this site!  Also, I’m only a few days away from reaching 800,000 YouTube views- 80% of the way towards my ultimate goal of a million!  I have had renewed ambition lately to promote the Laptop Sessions blog and my YouTube videos, so I hope I keep it going- my goal is to reach a million YouTube views sometime in 2011- hopefully the first half!

A funny note about “Step Into Christmas” by Elton John: the chorus always seemed odd to me.  I, for the first 26 years of my life, always thought he said, “Eat in the evening, come along with me.”  I thought that was such a stupid line!  I mean, Bernie Taupin couldn’t think of anything else you could do at Christmas other than eating in the evening??  Well, I decided that I should find out for sure if that was the line- turns out I was wrong.  He really says, “Eat, drink, and be merry; come along with me.”  Wow- I was WAY off!  Well, to be fair, I don’t think I ever would’ve guessed that- how did they fit those words into that short of a time-span?  Well, I figured it out and included it in my song.  I’m glad I did- there’s been a few Laptop Sessions cover songs videos where I sang incorrect words because I thought I knew them.  They’ve always haunted me.  For instance, on Brian Wilson’s “Live Let Live” video, I sang, “Pure Pacific, just as sure as the sky.”  I had no idea what that meant, but since Van Dyke Parks wrote the lyrics, I figured I shouldn’t ask questions.  Well, I did decide to ask questions, and it turns out the line is, “Blue Pacific, as azure as the sky.”  Ohhhhh, THAT’S what he said!  Brian has gotten a tad bit of a slur in his later years, and “as azure as” is hard enough to say anyway!  So, I botched that line.  I’ve never been proud of that video as a result.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great Christmas!!  I’ll be back right before New Year’s with another video, but I happy I got in this Christmas cover song today.  This year, I’m hoping to have one of the most memorable Christmases ever and I’ll be sure to tell you all about it after the big day comes.  I can’t believe it’s just a week away!  Until then- MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Announcing: end of the year WEEKEND REVIEW festivities!

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By Chris Moore:

To put it lightly, this has been a groundbreaking year for the Weekend Review and all its various off-shoots.  Featured here weekly on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song music video blog, the Weekend Review has gone “one-a-week” for what will be a combined total of 52 full-length album reviews by the end of the year.  In addition, there will have been over 30 “Yes, No, or Maybe So” one-sentence reviews, the “Top Five Rock Artists of the Decade (2000-2009)” five-part series, and various other one-off segments.

As 2010 draws to a close, it’s time to go out with a bang.  Thus, I am happy to announce that — starting tomorrow — there will be a music review list posted every day for the rest of the year.  In many cases, this will be in addition to other posts, such as the regularly scheduled sessions.  These lists will include the biggies like the top twenty albums and the top twenty-five songs of 2010, as well as lesser ranked items such as the top three debuts and the top ten music videos.

Be sure to check your LS Blog.  Check it often, as there are still six more Weekend Reviews, the New Music 2010 Special Report, and so much more before the year is over.

It all kicks off tomorrow — fittingly — with the Best Cover Songs of 2010 list.  Don’t miss it!

“Wonderwall” (Oasis Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your wonderful Monday edition of The Laptop Sessions!

Wait, did I use the words “wonderful” and “Monday” in the same sentence?  Why, yes I did!

I woke up this morning to the awesome news of there being a 90 minute delay to the start of my school day.  Always good news to wake up too.  Then, all I had to do today was finish one lesson I started Thursday, and give a quiz to two classes (one of which was very adamant in not taking the quiz today, despite the multiple times I mentioned to them Thursday that the quiz would take place on the next school day).

Well, despite that, I close out today with a great new band to add to our session library.  It’s a band that has been around for almost 20 years now.  The band is Oasis, and today’s song is possibly their most popular song called “Wonderwall”.

Here’s a song that i’ve known how to play for some time.  One thing that always bugged me is a person I used to know (was a boyfriend of a family member) who also played a cover of this song, but repeated the verse chords throughout the whole song, and couldn’t realize the fact he was doing it wrong!  Ugh, it was hard sitting through that.

So i’m glad I can provide you with a solid version of the song tonight.  It’s one of my better videos, despite my forgetting the 4th and 5th words of the final chorus.  Oops.

But regardless, it’s here for you and I hope you enjoy it.  I’ll be back for your holiday edition of The Laptop Sessions (my first one of the year ironically) on Thursday.  Each of us has 3 videos to go for the year!

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“Laughing” (The Guess Who Cover)

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Hello everyone and welcome to another new edition of the Laptop Sessions with Jim Fusco!  I’m excited to bring you this new acoustic cover song music video tonight from a band I absolutely loved growing up.

You see, in my early years, CDs were just becoming popular.  My father, being the music fan he is, was constantly buying music on CDs so he could have a pristine digital copy.  Fortunately for me, I got to hear many “Best Of” albums when he got them.  So, even though he probably had a couple Guess Who vinyl LPs, listening to these old hits on CD was like hearing them again for the first time.  So, as a kid, I was really into bands like the Monkees, the Moody Blues, and The Guess Who- and my love for them lives on today!

I’ve wanted to play the Guess Who song “Laughing” for quite a while now.  But, I could never really figure out the intricate opening section.  The “chords” are actually just augmented versions of one chord (based around an “A” chord).  So even though they all sound like different chords, it’s just a matter of moving one finger up or down one fret!  That’s pretty easy to play, but not so easy to figure out.  Songs like this, to me, raise a flag.  Songs that have these funny, intricate chord progressions (like making interesting variations on one chord) are almost always done like this: the guitar part came first and the rest of the song came later.  That is, Burton Cummings of the Guess Who was probably sitting down with his guitar, playing that opening section.  From there, he added those variations and all of a sudden, a song came to him!  That’s in contrast to the other form of songwriting (which I’ve been doing, but takes much longer to compile a full list of songs) where a tune pops into your head.  Then, you head on over to your guitar or piano to figure out the chords that go to it.

Either way of writing a song is fine by me (though my brother Mike is very much a purist for the “pop into your head” method), and I think songs like “Laughing” prove that fooling around with a couple of chords on the guitar can result in a big hit song.

The vocals are also great on “Laughing”.  That goes for both the soulful lead and the good backing vocals.  This song is pretty dynamic, too- it has three distinct tempos.  Plus, I think it’s the only song I’ve ever heard with in-tune laughing!

So, Christmastime is upon us.  Personally, I had an incredibly busy Thanksgiving weekend.  Between our two Thanksgiving get-togethers, the Jets game/TNA Wrestling night, midnight shopping at the outlets and other stores, another family get-together and sleepover Friday, a party and bar-hopping for my brother in law’s birthday on Saturday, I was POOPED by Sunday!  We finally got to put all the Christmas stuff up in the house and I must say, it looks pretty great.  I’m so excited for this Christmas- it promises to be (gift-wise, at least) one of the best yet.  I’m holding out hope for getting a couple of different gifts.  I’ll be posting on December 16th and the 30th, so I’ll be able to share the rundown of all my Christmas presents then!

I hope you enjoy tonight’s music video post of “Laughing” by the Guess Who.  If you know it, then you know it’s a classic tune.  If you don’t know it yet, then I think you’ll really dig it!  Have fun shopping and I’d love to hear from everyone how their Christmas season is going so far!  See you in a couple weeks for an all-new acoustic cover song music video!