Alphabetical ApologetiX IV: The Final Frontier
Sat., Aug. 8. 2020 1:30pm EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
"Miriam Girl," our brand-new spoof of "XXX's and OOO's," marks a significant milestone for ApologetiX: It's the first time we've ever spoofed a song that started with the letter X. There aren't many of those — just ask Olivia Newton-John and ELO. Their song "Xanadu" was really the only other viable candidate, although Rush fans may disagree.
With the release of this parody, we've now spoofed song titles starting with every letter of the alphabet. The other hard-to-get letters were Z and Q, and we got them when we spoofed "Ziggy Stardust" in December 2019 and "Queen of Hearts" in June 2020.
It was the fourth and final alphabetical goal I had for ApologetiX.
In December 2017, we achieved the first goal: having an album title for every letter of the alphabet — from Adam Up to Zebraic. The final letter we needed was X, and Xit Ego Lopa did the trick. Of course, we have 59 CDs, so there are many letters for which we have multiple albums. For example, the letters A and S have four albums each.
In November 2019, we achieved the second goal: having a parody title for every letter of the alphabet — from "Aaronic" to "Zekie's Start-Up." The final letter we needed for that was Z, so it should be obvious what song completed the collection. In the previous few months, we had also gotten Q ("Quite a God") and X ("Xerxes' Song").
In December 2019, we achieved the third goal: spoofing an artist for every letter of the alphabet — from ABBA to ZZ Top. Once again, X was the elusive letter, but we got it by spoofing XTC with "The Ballad of Peter Plungin' Ahead."
I praise God for giving us the ideas and the time to realize those goals!
I learned recently that I'm not the only songwriter out there who had alphabetical aspirations. There was also Dennis Linde, who wrote many hit songs, including "Burning Love" by Elvis Presley, "Goodbye Earl" by The Dixie Chicks, "Bubba Shot the Jukebox" by Mark Chesnutt, "Callin' Baton Rouge" by Garth Brooks, and "John Deere Green" by Joe Diffie.
Wikipedia says, "Linde had bizarre challenges for himself; i.e., daring himself to write a song starting with every letter in the alphabet, leading to the creation of 'X Marks The Spot' and 'Zoot Suit Baby.'"
I can certainly understand — and I'm sure Linde could, too — why Scrabble places so much value on the letters Q, X, and Z!
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