Exile in Coronavirus-ville? Liz Phair is having a little fun with her lyrics as the country continues to hunker down to flatten the curve of the pandemic.
The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter reworked the chorus of her song “6’1” off her critically acclaimed 1993 debut album, Exile in Guyville.
Playing off the CDC’s guidelines to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, Phair offered up some timely and witty lyrics, which she shared via Twitter on Wednesday (March 18):
And I-I-I-I kept standing Six feet away
Instead of five inches close
And I loved hand sanitizer
and I hated Coronavirus
The original chorus to her tune in which she stands up to a man who’s disappointed her? “And I kept standing six-feet-one/ Instead of five-feet-two/ And I loved my life/ And I hated you.”
While Phair had some coronavirus-related fun with her tune, one artist who doesn’t plan on doing a parody about the outbreak is “Weird Al” Yankovic. Fans were hoping that the musician, who is known for his song parodies, would take on The Knack’s 1979 hit “My Sharona,” but he has declined.
“Yeah, no, sorry,” he tweeted on March 3. “Not gonna do ‘My Corona.'”
While Yankovic has said no to helping lighten things up a bit during these dark times, other artists around the world have tried their hand at it with coronavirus-related songs. Among them are comedian/singer Mikey Bustos of the Philippines, who took on Lady Gaga’s new hit, “Stupid Love”; Hong Kong’s Kathy Mak revising Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”; and Singapore’s Alvin Oon trying his hand at Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence.”
63