Tag Archives: new york mets

“Jeff Francoeur Done It Again” – Chris’ 200th Laptop Session!

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By Chris Moore:

This is completely off the cuff, and I’m loving it!

All you Mets fans out there will be well aware that Jeff Francoeur — the topic of not a few trade rumors since the return of Carlos Beltran and the outstanding performance of Angel Pagan this season — got a spot on the starting rotation last night due to Jason Bay being out with a concussion.  Well, he made the most of it…

…with a three run homer off the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright, arguably one of the best pitchers in the game right now!

Granted, it’s only one hit in the midst of a mighty slump, but it reminded me of this great song called “Joe DiMaggio Done It Again” off Wilco and Billy Bragg’s second album of Woody Guthrie-penned (lyrics, at least) songs, Mermaid Avenue Vol. II.  I slipped a “Jeff” here and a “Frenchy” there, and voila!

This is my 200th Laptop Session, and I could think of no better way to celebrate it than to make it a fun one. (And, yes, at the beginning of the music video, that IS me doing my best Jeff Francoeur impression…)  I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Oh, and go Mets!!!

“Walter Johnson” (Jonathan Richman A Cappella Cover) – OPENING DAY DOUBLE HEADER 1 of 2

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For Jonathan Richman lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hey there, sports fans!  Welcome to yet another “Chris Moore Monday” here at the Laptop Sessions new music video blog.  Today, as you may already know, is the opening day for the 2009 season of the New York Mets.  Ah, America’s favorite pastime…

Baseball!

Because I couldn’t be home in time to watch the first Mets regular season game, I decided to celebrate by learning and recording not one but two cover songs tonight.  This is the first video, inspired by an encounter with one of my colleagues.  At the end of school on Friday, he stopped by my room and said simply, “Listen to Walter Johnson before opening day.”  All I could think to say was, “Is that a song or a person?”  Sure enough, it’s a song.  He smiled as he replied and repeated that I should listen to it before opening day.  So, as suggested, I looked it up on YouTube early this morning and found the Jonathan Richman song “Walter Johnson.”  It’s an a cappella performance from his 1995 album You Must Ask the Heart.

A search of Wikipedia produced a brief biography and a picture of Richman with a guitar and prominent eighties-era Tom Selleck chest hair.  I don’t know what I expected, but it was certainly interesting to put a face to the singer of this unique song.

Truth be told, I have no real idea what possessed me to record a version of “Walter Johnson.”  There’s something about recording your own version of a song that forces you to become intimate, if only temporarily, with a track.  In this case, I don’t have any plans to buy any Richman albums in the near future, so I figured it would be a long time before I heard “Walter Johnson” again.  Being that it was opening day, it only seemed appropriate that I would pay tribute to Walter Johnson by singing my own version of the song.

I hope you enjoy it.  Feel free, of course, to laugh as you wish.  The “bum ba bum ba bum” parts are pretty funny — at least, they were to me at first.   But, really, this is the perfect day to sing this song!

And this is only the first of two baseball-related tunes I’ve carved out for you today.  Tune into the next one, “Joe DiMaggio Done It Again,” coming very shortly (watch it!)…