Today is the Fourth of July in the United States, where we celebrate our independence from the British Monarchy through copious amounts of booze, burgers, and blowing things up. For our Thursday Threesome this week, I figured I'd share three off-center things that celebrate America in our own stupid, unique way.
One of the great patriotic songs in the American canon is "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Written in 1861 to the tune of an older song, "John Brown's Body," celebrating abolitionist and dude who killed Confederates with a sword John Brown, it was fitted to match up with the North's Union battle against the South in the Civil War.
The indie film Rocket Science (which is worth your time) was scored by lead singer/songwriter of Clem Snide (an indie band worth your time), Eef Barzelay. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is crucial to Rocket Science's plot, and Barzelay's take on it remains one of my favorites. It exchanges the melody and tempo a bit for a more rollicking folky option that works really well for me. It's hard to improve a song that's already close to perfect, but this comes close.
This is not safe for work, fair warning. In internet years, this is fairly ancient. In humor years, it's timeless. I wish every word of this was true, and some days, I simply believe it to be so, and that's that.
Drunk History Vol. 6: Tesla & Edison from Jeremy Konner on Vimeo.
Some of my favorite web videos have been the Drunk History series, and it turns out that they'll be making longer ones for Comedy Central which start airing next week. The video above is Nicola Tesla, who became an American citizen at age 35 and calls his citizenship one of the most important things he ever did, and Thomas Edison, one of America's great inventors.
It's about as insane as you think.
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