This is beautiful: Keyboardist Henry Hey of the band Rudder plays with the rhythm and melody of Sarah Palin speech:

via Glassdog.

StoryCorps declares November 28 2008 the first annual National Day of Listening, and offer a Do-It-Yourself Guide to help you:

This holiday season, ask the people around you about their lives — it could be your grandmother, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood. By listening to their stories, you will be telling them that they matter and they won’t ever be forgotten. It may be the most meaningful time you spend this year.

Joe Frank’s stage performance, “Just an Ordinary Man,” returns to Largo at the Coronet December 2nd and 3rd. Largo is taking reservations now. (Call 310-855-0350 and press #0 for ticket sales.)

From 236.com (Political Comedy – Unfair and Unbalanced):

Did watching the 2nd and 3rd debates give you a feeling of déjà vu? This montage of synced-up footage from all three presidential debates confirms our deep-seated belief that every debate was exactly the same.

“Synchronized Presidential Debating:”

rx has a new video, sampling George W Bush doin’ it “My Way:”

Another musical Obama-nation, Ben Sollee re-does his tune w/ the Best of Barack mixed in by DJ 2nd Nature:

“A Few Honest Words” (2:18 mp3):

More info and links at Some Velvet Blog.

The Orb often makes ambient-electro music out of spoken-voice snippets using of the rhythm of the speech. Their best-known spoke-sampled-song (details on clips used below) is from 1991, off The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, “Little Fluffy Clouds:”

---

Wikipedia has a complete history of the song. Sampled are Ennio Morricone’s “The Man With The Harmonica” (soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in the West) and “Electric Counterpoint” composed by Steve Reich and performed by guitarist Pat Metheny. The voice is Rickie Lee Jones from a promotional interview. Reich was “flattered.” Jones sued.

In 2007 Alan Parker: Urban Warrior (comedian Simon Munnery) parodied the song on BBC Radio 1 announcer Annie Nightingale’s compilation Y4K— The Orb & Alan Parker, “Grey Clouds” (2:30 mp3):

From sound designer David Grimes comes this cut-up speech-song, “Embarrassed” (1:36 mp3):

Grimes also did the sound for It’s JerryTime’s video “B Train Blues.”