Friday, October 12, 2012

Walk This Way

The key difference between Sesame Street songs and Muppet Show songs were that the latter focused on preposterously literal interpretations of lyrics and surreal juxtapositions while the former had to mine humor out of educational concepts and parodies.  So where did this next song even come from?

8. A New Way to Walk - The Oinker Sisters


Okay, clearly the Oinker Sisters are a riff on the Pointer Sisters, known for such hits as "I'm So Excited," and... "Pinball Number Count."  And the look of the video is very reminiscent of "Jump (for My Love)."  But that doesn't explain how this song came into being (or why it had to involve pigs).

None of it matters though, because this song became an anthem to Generation Y.  All of us who were children during the era of this song's prominence probably remember this tune fondly.  It encouraged individualism during a time when we couldn't make much of an impact.  Crawling around in diapers was our biggest claim to fame.

But what are the first two things children learn to do?  Walk and talk.  Developing these motor and linguistic skills are quite the challenge at a young age.  Toddlers can look a little ridiculous as they struggle to learn.  This song taught us to embrace it.  So we can walk now?  Time to walk our own way.  These piggy divas gave us the confidence to own our unique qualities and take charge of the one thing in life we had control over: our mobility.

Finally, we could climb on giant words!

There's a reason this bizarre song is remembered as a classic.  Many songs "define a generation,"but this one created a generation.  Without "A New Way to Walk," we would all just be piggies without purpose.

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