night music: Pachelbel's Canon in D

You know the one. The boring one. Here's a less loathsome version of the original--usually it's played in a kind of deathmarch lockstep. Bonus points if it's an out-of-tune high school orchestra.


Maybe you can get all the way through that. I couldn't.

People have tried to spice it up over the years. For example, the University of Michigan a cappella group Amazin' Blue added lyrics, which I sang with my groups in high school and college:


That one got the groupies going, let me tell you.

My brother came home from college having discovered the music of George Winston, who actually made it interesting. Here you also get to see his freakish piano technique: I saw him perform in college with my concert-pianist girlfriend, and she twitched the entire time.


That's the version I grew up with, so I never quite understood the hate.

One guy was sort of traumatized by the experience of playing the monotonous cello line in high school, and he grew up to be a standup comedian, and he starts to illustrate why it's so popular:



And then. THEN. The Australians show up.


Yep. All our songs sound the same. But who cares?

Or, as King of the Hill put it: "It's okay if you only know three chords, as long as you play 'em in the right order."