Gnarls Barkley - Crazy (Patrícia and Afonso) vocals/piano cover

John Watt

Member
Crazy by Gnarls Barkley is one of the last big hit songs I really wanted to learn.
I heard a strange mix of r'n'b and rock, and a strange chord change from Cm to C.
It gave me problems right away, wanting to play a rhythm or chop some chords,
but it has a steady 4/4 timing. I can pick it like "Every Breath You Take" by the Police,
to add some more notes and accents.

Here's a transition version between this young woman and man,
using a street band before I use my favorite version, Gnarls Barkley at Daryls' House.
This is just over two minutes long.




Watching these guys throw together this song makes me feel a little sad,
remembering my late 80's times of over two years in Toronto playing in show-bands.
How many times did a lead singer have a song he wanted to do,
and started asking have you heard it, and if two or three of the musicians did we played it.
Of course it was always good if you liked it at the finish.
I once was woken up for a 9:00 to 11:00 rehearsal in a club when that could be our only practice time.
The lead singer wanted the band to learn five new songs, having a new bassist with a fairly new me.
We went through all five songs, everyone having a good time, and everyone going back to bed.
When we got together later on for lunch no-one could remember what five songs we learned.
Not even the agent or the singers' father could remember, a truly amazing rehearsal.
And I stress I'm a non-smoker non-drinker, shocked that I thought it was just part of the previous gig.

Crazy is a stressful song, a deep lyrical groove about addiction and human love. It has to be tight.
What you, and the band, are singing, and what you are playing, flows along so softly and smoothly,
until you're playing a C major chord instead of the C minor and using the other chords in an opposite way.
That's when the song carries you, and you're finding that even your emotions have an echo, there's so much space.
Within three years Gnarls Barkley was performing with a shaved head, tattoos up his neck and face,
and heavy chains with a bike vest on. When he first came out with a slow version, wearing a suit,
people thought he was a gospel musician.
I still want to do this song, seeing so much potential and wanting to solo in it.


 

John Watt

Member
If you watch Daryl Hall towards the second half of this video,
you can see him getting frustrated with the guitar part, chopping a little,
and then mixing it up, making Gnarls look over to see what he was doing.
He should have tried the "Every Breath You Take" picking style,
unless he could finger-pick some classical influences.
I'm still waiting for this song to come back with a bigger orchestra production.
 

John Watt

Member
Ella Beck! Going crazy for a thread about Crazy is so appropriate it might require medication for you.
I can see you picked the most thread-bare version, if not lacking in any soulful communication,
especially if the pianist has to look at sheet music to help get him through.
Basically, I'd say it's just unprofessional, two people with a video camera they can use.

Crazy is a serious song about narcotic drug addiction,
and when he laughs he's laughing at someone who is stoned and doesn't want to listen.
If this song was the biggest song in the United States that year,
you have to imagine all the ramifications of the words and stage presentations.
That also means what kind of audience is there that can make this such a huge hit?

I'm not expecting anyone to watch all over these videos as performance pieces,
just seeing the start as a snap-shot of where this song went and how it changed Cee-Lo.

This isn't the TV talk show appearance where he sang it slow and looked gospel,
with singers in gowns and stuff like that.
Here, he's donning a military look with a show-band that follows that theme.
This version is so weak, and he's doing it slow when it's number one on the charts.
Why is he doing this?


Here he is again on a TV talk show, playing it close to the original, but look at the show.
Is this a high school or college version, with players onstage looking like students?
And what's with the tartans? What kind of after-show action is he expecting?
Will his use of violins and other orchestral instruments help you get into it?




Here we are with all these versions of this song, and that ride isn't over yet.
I'm asking you to ask yourself that why this man who lived his life to write this song,
is using so many different types of personas as he pushes it across American and global media.
He was one of the founders of "Goodie Mob" when that lifestyle was about the crack and da club.
There are two types of musicians.
Those that play instruments and those that make a living as a musician.
The whys and wheres and hows about living on the road, living in clubs and bars,
and what it takes to make someone want to live like that, doesn't matter.
It's who you are or what life has driven you to.
It took all that to write this song, like a diamond popping into his bank account.
Displaying this musical jewel, showing the shine, getting to sing for the bling,
is like a marriage, only it's with the world, your fans and audiences, and that's a huge attention.
Having a lot of people looking at you and listening to you does physical and psychological things to you,
and it's only addictive. And this is just the reason for being onstage, not for what happens backstage.
Are you living your own life, or has the song become a new skin to rub up against the world with,
where, as the song changes, it changes you. Too much cash doesn't help either.

Let's keep going... I'm feeling an emotional echo... and it's all about you, you-oo-oo, yeah, follow me.
 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
As the song went global so did the size of the shows and cover artists,
people who had to associate the song with them to keep their style alive.
It doesn't get any bigger than this, Beyonce.
Her husband employs over 1,400 people, is the biggest rap artist of all time,
and between the two of them control a lot of what American entertainment is about.

Beyonce is doing it a little slow, but she's using the bass line from the original song.
This is the song getting up to arena show-band levels, even if I'm not sure Beyonce got it up there first.
She's too much of a shouter, and she's working on the visuals more than the music.
This is a scene from the American Empire, nothing native cultural about it, unless it's a New York state of mind.
44 seconds



Here's Cee-Lo getting up on an arena stage himself to sing it, even if it belongs to Prince.
He's even dancing it up a little as he moves up front. Prince writes and sings his own songs.
Why did he celebrate Cee-Lo and give him some stage time on his dime?
Oh yeah! Even though Prince moved to Toronto in Canada to get away from America,
his own sad addictions came with him, and that's what he recently died from, an overdose.
I'm surprised he's using a Fender Telecaster instead of one of his own custom guitars,
and he's not playing anything close to the solo I'm hearing.
He's got a nice, thick tone happening, so he must have custom pickups in the Tele.

I was at a point in my life where I was starting to play arenas and big venues,
with agents booking bands for over $25,000 a gig, all air fare and expenses covered,
including stage shoes, pants, shirts, jackets, vests, custom clothing, and security.
But for me, an arena or big venue isn't a good, or even a real, musical environment,
and the rest of the environment was a life-style of drugs and sex I didn't want to do.
One night, I made up my mind.
I was standing there beside the pool, everyone who came from the gig being in the backyard.
They started taking their clothes off to skinny dip and I was getting harassed by some naked women,
suspicious of me, so I did the same and jumped in, and as soon as everyone else was in, I came out.
This was all about everyone cooling off and getting that fresh skin feeling.
I stood there looking as a woman brought out a case, saying she would be the nurse,
and everyone was getting an injection before they went into main floor with mattresses all over.
Deep drugs and shallow sex, that's what I said to myself to make up my mind.
That's when I put my clothes back on and walked over twelve miles back to my room.
Seeing that much fame and fortune, being very attractive musicians with local celebs, made me think,
is this all it is worth, is this where it can only come down to, for me in Ontario?
I thought of those musicians, the cassettes they made, and if it got to them it would get me.
I decided to quit when I turned thirty, more of a bookmaking and moving back home in May decision.
My father and mother wanted me back home, still their son, still sharing the love of our lives.
They even said I was too big a rock star to charge room and board, and I was over thirty,
so I began living free. Being a protest mayoral candidate to stand up to the crazy criminals of Welland,
brought me down. At least I didn't do it to myself. I get back up again.
The Canadian federal government removed a law that was used to arrest me as a candidate,
and the Province of Ontario passed two new laws because of me, resulting in life-time and lengthy jail time.
It was worth it back then, and it's the most important part of my life now.
It's not my favorite, or the best. Being in a band is. I'm going to try and get one together soon.


 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
Here's Cee-Lo in front of a huge festival audience, and look at him now.
A bald head, more tattoos, getting dark around the eyes, and he's playing off the song,
doing the festival and arena audience thing. The comments of other people there say a lot.
Unfortunately, while he set a new standard for hip-hop song-writing, this was his only hit.
I'm inspiring myself to look him up just to hear another song by him. I'm not sure I have.



Here's CeeLo after he brought back all the fame and fortune to his new corporate masters.
You can arguably say these are the three biggest adult entertainers in the United States.
Christina Aguillera, what more do I need to say, Blake Shelton, a country star married to Gwen Stefani of No Doubt,
and Adam Levine, having number one hits on pop charts for over fifteen years.
I even like his new video, where different women shape-shift around him as he sings,
even Ellen Degeneris and other Hollywood celebrities.
Where's the song now, just a prop for everyone to climb aboard.
I hope Christina didn't hurt herself trying to sing far more than what the song is.
At least CeeLo looks happy with all the company he has attracted.

 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
I'm going to end this cycle of videos with this Kelly Clarkson version,
and again, Kelly is one of the biggest singing stars in America.
She must have felt she had to try this song, seeing everyone climbing aboard.
I was tempted to use a Nelly Furtado cover, local for me,
because when she tried to do it at the Juno Awards she had to stop the band,
saying they never made it all the way through during rehearsals,
and she didn't know why they tried it during the ceremonies.
This video is also getting back to a home version with a woman singing,
and a man playing piano, plus a guitarist off to the side.
I'm trying to draw a comparison to the first video that started this thread.




So, Ella Beck and everyone else who is who getting a little too much Crazy,
here's my take on these videos and what this thread is and where you're at.

The first video is two well-meaning people making a video of them doing this song.
They're not professional, they're not very good, and it's not coming together,
not as the song it first was or could be. They're just beginners, that's all.
If they invited me to their house for a nice family lunch when I was on the road,
I'd show up for sure and probably try to get a ball hockey game going on the driveway,
after giving them a big musical boost with their own equipment.

The version at Daryls' House is my favorite as a live performance and is very close to the original.
If they really are throwing it together that fast, they're very very good.
If that was me, I'd be saying Daryl, please, can we do one of yours first,
and can I sing Maneater?
As far as a bunch of rock stars playing a song on their own private property,
this really is as good a this song gets, looking through many videos.

The Street Funk version makes me think the female singer is a real estate agent,
and it's some kind of group home effort so she could make a recording.
She might sell me some real estate, but she's not selling me the song.
She looks too healthy to be getting into it anyway. She also is probably married with children.
Forget her. She's not going to leave her life behind just to sing a song onstage.
And besides, every agent I knew didn't want to work with married musicians.
She could be a professional, but she's to happy and healthy to fit in.

The two videos of CeeLo, or Cee Lo, performing on a TV talk show in various costumes,
the top American TV talk shows, complements other appearances like that,
looking like an American icon with the costumes and stage clothes for the musicians.

The song gets up into arenas, using Princes' version,
and then Beyonce does it, sounding like it's part of a medley.
Cee Lo is shown with the biggest stars onstage for media distribution,
a big corporate acceptance by female and male pop-rock and country.

He's so big he keeps getting bigger, and it's bringing him down, using the festival video.

So, Ella Beck and anyone else following this, what kind of music business can I share with you?
Is there really a reality behind all these videos that flash across our screens?

CeeLo, as part of the "Goodie Mob", was a hip-hop sample artist.
Don't think he wrote this song sitting with a piano or guitar himself.
If you saw him at the start you would have seen him alone on a club stage,
probably a club he was part owner of, dominating the scene, all about crack and crack-weed.
The guitar part here is what became the bass, and the trumpet line is the melody.
The movie soundtrack changes to sounds of gunfire, and that's also appropriate for me,
and gun-play might be the one thing Cee Lo misses, leaving hip-hop clubs behind.


 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
When I sing a song like the original, that's just a cover song.
I'm always adding my own verses or making up my own words from the start.
Yes, adding an ending verse to "God Bless the Child" did surprise a lot of people during that one gig,
after getting it as a request, but it only got me some free pop and started a debate about how real it was.
That's retro, even classic rock, but now it's so easy to update classic rock and pop with new millennium words.
I'm always doing that. It's so easy to riff off the words to songs you've been singing and hearing since the 60's.
That's a cultural thing, what local people do with a famous song.
Look what Crazy hath wrought. I see this performance as being a serious case of the crazies.



What's happening is happening and it's happening all over with this song,
and the use of crack in America and southern Ontario.
Here's another hit.
The first "parody" video featured a man without going anywhere,
and he had some good riffs on the words, even if he missed the laughter.
These guys must be out looking, because the words aren't as poetic or have the variety,
they could have, after coming down from that high.


 

John Watt

Member
Let's see what those crafty English corporate types think when they sense something new with their nostrils.
They already had their British Invasion that was totally successful, so this is a cultural blow-back.
This is Adeles' song "Rolling in the Deep" played over "Crazy" from beginning to end.
You really don't hear the change from C minor to major in this one, in fact, other versions miss a chord or two.

There are other parody versions, more covers by stars and home alones, movie soundtracks and pro sports use.
I'm still going to be listening around to more videos after I'm done here, because some day I'll be doing this song,
or something like it that will be my own.



This next one is my favorite version for Ella Beck, recorded on a street she may have walked on,
okay, and did some shopping too.
This is the first use of a wah-wah for this song, that I've heard, and it's by a violin player.
I can see him being in my band, playing along while I'm singing.
As an agent, just looking at him, I'd tell him he has a career as a violinist if he keeps it going.
Everyone likes a tall and skinny violinist. I don't know why he played with a wah without using a phase-shifter.

There he is with a fiddle, and he's fiddling around, he's always playing around with that sound,
even if he's gigging with both feet on the ground, he's not down, no, he's no crack clown.
Give him a listen, and then toss some coins into his case, you know he's someone who brought joy to your day,
and the way our lives are, we should take it any way, yeah, that we can get it, I've got to say,
you know I'm lazy, I'm just too lazy, yes I'm very lazy... to make a video just for you-oo-oo.



 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
"Crazy" came out over ten years ago, and it's still a big YouTube agenda for many musicians.
But after this Crazy ride, or surfing through fame, what was his next hit?
I'm not going to type the title here, but he used his fame and fortune to push his club culture,
even if I doubt it's mainstream for you, or how you talk to those closest to you.
Yeah! Where is Gnarls Barkley? I haven't heard of him for over ten years.
I doubt if he's in Niagara Falls doing private shows in hotel rooms,
like some other big entertainers.
No... no... I shouldn't have typed that, because I'm thinking what his honeymoon would be.
And what's with the tartan jacket? I've got a winter coat like that.


In case you're wondering about my social studies of music as cultural influences,
here's William Shatner doing this song on a live TV talk show.
He might have made his fame by taking us out into outer space,
but he's never been spaced out enough to get into this song.
But look, listen to what he's singing live on television as a new allowance of profanity.
Even if aliens were trying to tear him or the Enterprise in half, he never talked like this.


 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
It's another day in the land of the new rising sun. I re-read and re-watched this thread.
I think the most important words in the song are, about the level of craziness crack makes you,
is saying "It's no co-incidence I come, and if I do some, I might die, but I don't care. Does that make me crazy?"
If you remember the crack-head persona singing his crack lyrics, he really stresses doing it ten years ago,
singing about remembering the first toke. Why's that?
Every crack-head I've talked to, and they are all around, say the same thing.
The first toke is the best. No matter how much you can do after that, it's never the same. Why's that?
Crack is a chemical product, nothing organic about it, even if you consider L.S.D. and "angel dust" to be recreational.
It changes you, what it's supposed to do. You are never the same after that, and it's not the high you're chasing.
What do addicts say makes it all worthwhile? The sex.
Crack and meth-heads need to feel the body warmth of another human being after doing up, and it could be a roomful.
The last raid in this building, the apartments at the back, not my main street storefront entrance,
had eighteen meth-heads living in one apartment, with another group on an outside side roof with an extension cord for hydro.
These addicts will lay there together naked for half an hour or an hour, until they start becoming active.

When you've been losing control with these drugs for a while you start to pick skin off your neck and shoulders.
Skin the size of a dime, picked the same size for every addict. The picking spreads to the rest of your body,
and I remember, I remember, when it was just fun, addicts saying for the first time someone is picked all over.
I had to go and take a look, seeing him on a bus bench, ankles to neck and down to his wrists,
these half-inch circles of picked skin almost joining together all over him. He sat there until complaints put him in rehab.
That shows how specific the recipe is for this drug, if men and women pick the same size circles with the same pattern.
That also shows it took a scientist with an atomic microscope, like the ones used to make L.S.D. for the C.I.A. in California.
After that, it was retro-engineered so anyone could use home hardware and pharmaceutical products to make their own.
Despite what you might see in TV episodes like "Breaking Bad" and in movies, you don't need heat to make it.
You can let your chemicals sit in a pail and let them harden before you start smashing it up into crystals.
You still need ashes from a cigarette or fire, and usually the pipe you're using, if you know how, to turn it into what you smoke.
Only fentanyl is just as bad, as far as being a new drug concoction goes. When you buy that it's ready to smoke.
When it was first put into marijuana and sold here in social services buildings where addictions are supported,
as long as you buy it from them, nine people died that first night. Three bodies were found outside around these buildings.
No... it wasn't reported in the newspaper.

I beg you. Don't do crack. You can't go back.
You might get away from it, you might just do it to keep on track,
and even if you leave it behind, you'll be feeling that "even my emotions had an echo, there was so much space".
That is what you have become, you for the rest of your life with an empty dead space inside you.
You might even start not being able to remember being a teenager. You don't want that.

This version would be my best recommendation for alphonsoandre and Ella Beck, who started this thread.
It's a sleepy version, like you've done it already, and these players approach it as music, a song,
as you can see they're not into the life-style and are retro-jazzy with it. Or are they?
You can see a display of a big arm tattoo. Someone has caught a lot of needle action already.
And I wonder if the male singer stands still with one hand over his heart and other down towards his groin,
is doing an addict imitation, and when the song becomes more active that's when he starts to sing.
The original song is minimalist, more about the lyrics and as music, the key and chord change-ups.
The clarinet solo is the best instrumentation heard so far on this thread.
She got me thinking that Artie Shaw and his big band could have done a wonderful take on this song.
I'm wondering what Billie Holliday would have sounded like, singing it with him, or Judy Garland.

You haven't heard it here as on the radio, but you've seen enough videos.
If I said can you play this song, could you? It starts with C minor and has three other chords.
The change-up, what I won't call a chorus, changes the song to C major,
and the the three other chords, same as the C minor section, are re-arranged.
It's very unexpected, such basic changes and re-arrangements, how it affects you.
You start off in minor, and you feel the song, you can let your heart soar as you sing it,
and when you do it changes to major, and it throws you, changes you, but as you continue,
it has a new feel, a new flow, as the song, the musicians, other people, carry you,
and then it's back to being minor and you feel more back to normal, and you don't need a bridge or crescendo.

"Who do you, who do you think you are?" It doesn't matter if you know. You want to stay that way.


 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
When I was sharing replies with the symphony players who were active here,
that was getting into truly compassionate exchanges about the music of our hearts.
Even if I didn't have the same education, I felt we shared our lives as much as the music.
I'm sure you know what they call people who ignore the obvious.
And I was only obvious.
So is Gnarls Barkley, if you can hear it and see it.
Some people think you can be taught how to listen to classical music.
Hip-hop is harder because music is a small part of it,
as long as you think music is something humans make with their own bodies, using instruments.

What is another societal effect of this hip-hop, meth or crack lifestyle becoming "mainstream"?
American government employees who aren't being paid since the "White House shut-down",
are playing uncensored rap recordings loudly over airport sound systems,
the first such examples being reported.

Don't forget, music has become weaponized in the United States,
ever since media reports said the C.I.A. was blasting Metallica through loud systems,
at the residence of the leader of Panama, Daniel Noriega,
when Americans were trying to make him walk out voluntarily to face arrest in America.
That was after Noriega went too far trying to act like Panama was a sovereign country.
When Metallica had to hire a new bassist they hired a "Mexican". Good for them.
 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
awwww! I'm not so glad anyone can think like that.
If you want to talk about getting the feeling of what you recorded,
I can say you are just not only ignoring me, but ignoring what "Crazy" is all about.
Is that the feeling you are talking about? I know it's not, because you look like a healthy couple.
You have to accept reality.
If you went to play this song in an American club where that society is present,
you either wouldn't survive the night or you'd run out, leaving your equipment behind,
and that's how the club would like it.

I sing "Crazy", but I use it as an anti-drug message, adding personal verses.
It's always a moving musical moment when I'm singing over the C major instead of the minor,
but it would be a far better world around me if I didn't feel compelled to play this song.
I'm not a meth or fentanyl head, and you shouldn't want to be one.
That really is crazy, just as the song says before the irresistible becomes the addictive.

A nice keyboard song you might want to try is "Waiting For a Girl Like You" by Foreigner, in Am.
If you both looked into each others eyes to create a scene it would come over better as a video.
Looking someone or the camera in the eye is the basic thing for any entertainer to do,
humanizing the experience as much as possible, if you're hoping to convery some real feeling,
instead of just trying to ingratiate yourself with someone else who is looking to ingratiate themselves with you.
I much prefer gratuity, where I'm paying a cover charge or giving a tip to hear a song.
That's real respect.
And if all you did was ask me a question about the chords to this song and your piano playing,
when it is a guitar, bass and drum driven song, you would have been very happy with the result.
However, in our modern digital times, people are just recording themselves as vanity projects,
when there isn't any real intention to be a dance band or play for live audiences,
unless you get so famous on YouTube the world is waiting for you to show up.
But you're not using lights, backdrops or costumes, so I'm not seeing you as looking to do that.

And as far as the different "Crazy" videos I put up and all of my comments, only being real,
didn't you get any feeling from that? nawwwwww! Unless you are too apprehensive to deal with it.
 
Top