Greetings and salutations Hivers. Time once again for another Three Tune Tuesday.
As always, thanks to @ablaze for keeping this series alive. If you ever need new music, following the tag is a surprisingly good way to lose an hour.
Today’s set looks chaotic on paper, but there is a line running through it—one that goes from parody, to sincerity, to something quietly hypnotic.
Weird Al Yankovic – Pac-Man (Taxman parody)
This is early Weird Al, before the full accordion-led avalanche, when his humor was already sharp but still oddly restrained. How early? Back when he was still recording songs for Dr Demento. Taking Taxman and filtering it through the lens of an arcade obsession was such a perfectly early-’80s move that it almost feels inevitable in hindsight.
What I like about this one now is how gentle it is. It’s silly, yes, but it’s also affectionate. You can tell this is coming from someone who genuinely loved both the Beatles and Pac-Man.
It also gives us our first connective thread for today.
Trivia: Dr Demento quickly received a cease-and-desist from the Taxman owners. Years later in order to rerelease the song, Al had to get premission both from Namco and from the estate of George Harrrison.
Al will pop back up again shortly — this time not as a parody artist, but as a cameo.
George Harrison – My Sweet Lord (50th Anniversary Video)
I’m using the official 50th-anniversary video here — the one packed with cameos, including Weird Al and Ringo Starr.
The song itself doesn’t need defending. It’s earnest to the point of vulnerability, and Harrison never hides that sincerity behind irony. That’s precisely why it’s endured.
What makes this video special isn’t just the star-spotting, though. It reframes the song as something communal rather than confessional, something like a shared chant that keeps echoing outward. See how many people you can recognize.
And from here, the transition to the final track is almost effortless.
Ringo’s presence is brief, but it’s enough to carry us into the third piece.
Joris Voorn – Ringo
Despite the title, this isn’t a novelty track and it isn’t about actually about Ringo the Beatle, at least in any literal sense. Instead, it’s one of those minimal techno pieces that feels like it’s circling an idea rather than stating it outright.
The repetition is the point. Small shifts matter. The track slowly tightens its focus until you’re no longer listening to it so much as moving with it.
After the openness of My Sweet Lord, this feels like the inward turn — the same sense of mantra, but stripped of words.
It’s a surprisingly calm place to land after starting with Pac-Man, eh? You'd almost think I planned this.
So — which one grabbed you today?
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David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. |
