(Most of) My Maraoke Songs
Posted at 01:47 on 22nd February 2015 - permalink

Note: As of late 2019, Marioke has been renamed Maraoke.

Video game karaoke (that is to say, karaoke to popular songs with the lyrics wittily rewritten to be about video games) has long been a staple of the One Life Left (Resonance FM’s long-running video game radio show/podcast) Christmas Party.

But evidently once a year wasn’t enough. For the last several months years, a dedicated team have held a regular game karaoke event – originally dubbed “One Song Left”, then “Thirdsday”, then “Marioke” before settling on “Maraoke” – at least once a month at Loading Peckham. (Previously it had been hosted at Loading Dalston for several years before the Covid pandemic. During the period when it was not possible to host live shows, it was hosted virtually on Twitch.)

Every month new lyrics are contributed to the repertoire, which now contains several hundred songs from dozens of talented contributors, with lyrics covering everything from industry history lessons, to game reviews, to amorous encounters with Pokemon.

So far I’ve contributed the following full songs:

Daft Punk – Get Lucky

Weezer – Undone (The Sweater Song)

The Police – Message In A Bottle 1

Little Mix – DNA (Alternate version) 2

Nirvana – In Bloom (May 2015)

Oasis – She’s Electric (June 2015)

ABBA – Thank You For The Music (September 2015) 3

Beastie Boys – Sabotage (November 2015) 4

Talking Heads – Road to Nowhere (February 2016)

Roxy Music – Virginia Plain (November 2016)

Dexys Midnight Runners – Geno (January 2017)

Beastie Boys – Intergalactic (February 2017)

Paul Simon – 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (May 2017)

Radiohead – Just (June 2017)

The Bloodhound Gang – The Bad Touch (June 2017)

U2 – Where The Streets Have No Name (September 2017)

My Chemical Romance – I’m Not Okay (October 2017)

Nik Kershaw – The Riddle (November 2017) 5

Eminem – Lose Yourself (November 2017) 6

Tammy Wynette – Stand By Your Man (March 2018)

Phil Collins – Another Day In Paradise (June 2018)

Cher – If I Could Turn Back Time (July 2018)

Seal – Kiss From A Rose (August 2018) 7

Wings – Live And Let Die (September 2018) 8

Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody (December 2018)

Insane Clown Posse – Miracles (January 2019) 9

R.E.M. – The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite (November 2019)

Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer (February 2020)

K**** W*** – Monster (October 2020) 10

The Breeders – Cannonball (March 2022)

The Beatles – Get Back (September 2022)

Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll (November 2022)

Del Amitri – Nothing Ever Happens (November 2022)

Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya & P!nk – Lady Marmalade (March 2023)

Demi Lovato – Heart Attack (May 2023)

Babybird – You’re Gorgeous (October 2023)

Notes:

1. Co-written with Sara Passmore.
2. The version on the system is someone else’s version! Do not select it expecting this version.
3. I’m almost certain this has only ever been performed once…
4. …whereas this has been performed the most often of all my songs. It is extremely fun to do.
5. Retired from the system as the song is too slow and momentum-killing in the live context.
6. Retired from the system (after many performances) as the subject has been deemed too obscure. (It also eats up a lot of time as it includes a scene-setting video intro.)
7., 8. Candidates for future retirement (or explanatory images being added) as subject in each case is again too old/obscure for younger audience members.
9. Bizarrely this has been picked multiple times.
10. Expected to be retired for hopefully obvious reasons.

I’ve written a few more songs that aren’t listed above, but these are the ones of mine that (I think) stand up to repeated performance.

I plan to keep contributing more songs, assuming any more songs that enough people know AND are prepared to sing at karaoke AND which lend themselves to dumb video game jokes remain untapped at this point.

Maraoke continues to take place at least once per month, with additional appearances at industry events. There is now an official site with lyric videos, booking information, and a complete song list at SingMaraoke.com.


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