When bassist
Mike Mills of the group REM sang Yellow River, some people
more accustomed to the band's harder sound were surprised.
This hilarious account was posted by REM fan Matt Marrone
— how wonderful it would be if only it were true.
The World Has Never
Been The Same —
Yellow River has made our lives infinitely better
In late 2001, very few people would have
guessed that the next world revolution would be about music,
not war. And even fewer would have foreseen that revolution
erupting at the end of a professional football game. But
that is where it all began; when, after his team’s
victory in the Super Bowl*,
MVP Tom Brady was asked the question, “What are you
going to do next?”
He had been paid $50,000 to say, “I’m
going to Disneyland!” But to the shock and dismay of
Disney officials, the star quarterback instead replied,
“I’m going to Yellow River!"
Television viewers across the nation were entirely
baffled, but they soon came to understand: in the New England
Patriots’ clubhouse, amidst the grand celebration,
burly, powerful, 300lb champagne-soaked men were holding
hands and singing along with the stereo: “Put my gun
down, the war is won. Fill my glass high, the time has come.
I’m going back to the place that I love – Yellow
River!”
And all at once, 20 million Americans heard
Yellow River, an REM b-side,
for the very first time.
Soon, it was being broadcast 24 hours a
day throughout the US and Europe, and beamed out to foreign
services stationed abroad, from the Middle East to the South
Pacific. It soon caught fire in Australia, Asia, South and
Central America, the former Soviet Union and Africa and
also became the song of choice for scientists stationed
in Antarctica and astronauts orbiting the earth from outer
space.
Hundreds of thousands of impoverished and illiterate
people left their meagre farms and sought Peace Corps volunteers
so they could learn English and truly connect with the song.
Some even sold all their possessions, including their children,
to afford a radio to listen to it being broadcast. It was
obvious that the world was never going to be the same.
The song spread like marmite on British toast,
capturing the hearts of even the most hardened souls.
Who could forget first seeing the video images
of Israeli soldiers and members of the PLO hugging, crying
and dancing while Arafat and Sharon sang a karaoke duet
of Yellow River using hundreds
of giant speakers placed throughout Jerusalem?
Or the video statement released by Osama Bin
Laden apologising for his role in the World Trade Center
attack, saying Yellow River
had made him reconsider his personal politics and admit
that American citizens must have feelings too?
Or when Saddam Hussein handed over all his
nuclear and biological weapons to a UN task force, as Yellow
River blazed over loudspeakers in Baghdad while Iraqi
soldiers leapt through the streets in what is now known
as the Yellow River in Baghdad Dance, orchestrated by Saddam
himself, who had stayed up the whole previous night in his
war room with his top advisors, listening to the song over
and over, and choreographing it?
Or the sight of several thousand deceased world
political and spiritual leaders rising from their graves
to join in on a chorus of the song before returning to the
land of the dead?
Or when Jesus Christ came back to earth for
a second time, to make sure he also got a copy of the Yellow
River remix?
.jpg)
Last month, members of Congress voted to
add the lyrics to Yellow River as
an Amendment to the US Constitution. “What it will
mean exactly for future laws is unclear,” said House
of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert, “but the
majority of us believe that it might make laws entirely
obsolete.”
At the last minute, President Bush and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected a joint resolution to
have the Magna Carta removed from its air-tight encasement
in Washington, DC and have the lyrics to Yellow
River added to it by hand, but both have promised
to spray paint the lyrics of the song on monuments across
their respective nations.
Last week in Mecca, thousands of Muslims making
their once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage carried cassette recorders
and played the song as they made their way into the city.
Officials say that all mosques will now feature the song
as a closing prayer, following the lead of Jewish synagogues
in Jerusalem and around the world, which have replaced Encoluheinou
with Yellow River.
The Pope has yet to announce the reaction of
the Roman Catholic church, but there are several changes
expected to be made within the normally conservative religion,
such as making the song a Psalm.
The Tiber River in Rome was renamed the Yellow
River, securing the name before the Nile, the Amazon, the
Congo or The Danube could do so, but Italian officials have
said that the other rivers are entitled to the name as well
if they so desire it.
Details are still sketchy, but several of the
world’s top scientists and philosophers have met in
Geneva to discuss plans for creating the Yellow River Institute
which has already been promised funding from most of the
nations of the world. The Institute is expected to have
an answer to whether there is a God within 18 months, as
well as to find a cure for all known diseases.
“On the God thing,” said Stephen
Hawking, “I must say we’re leaning yes. Although
I have been forced to spend my life in a wheelchair and
communicate using a special computer, this REM song is almost
indisputable proof of the existence of a higher power.”
REM, which consists of guitarist Peter
Buck, vocalist Michael Stipe and newly appointed World Ambassador
for Peace bassist Mike Mills, has been a highly acclaimed
rock band for over 20 years, but hasn’t achieved this
sort of recognition since their song Revolution appeared
on the Batman and Robin soundtrack in 1995.
This fast-paced rock and roll track was used
as a weapon against terrorists on several occasions, causing
one would-be sniper to cry, “My revolution was a silly
idea, yeah” as he was dragged away by SWAT team members.
People around the world have come to love the
splendour that is the awe-inspiring Yellow
River, which originally appeared on the single for
All The Way To Reno
(You’re Gonna Be a Star), and sales of all of REM’s
albums have skyrocketed, although the Yellow
River single has now outsold all of the others combined.
A few die-hard REM fans were left baffled
by the success of Yellow River.
“It’s great that they’re so
popular and everything, but ‘Yellow
River’ sucks,” said one fan, who was immediately
detained and sent for re-education.
An article a year or so ago quoted another
fan as saying Yellow River
was a song about urine. “Whenever I hear it, I have
nightmarish visions of Mike Mills calling out the chorus,
coupled with images of elderly, incontinent people wetting
themselves in retirement homes. It’s sick.”
That fan is now missing and presumed dead.
No one misses him, however, and there have been no inquiries.
As for the rest of the world, not a single
person has spoken out against the song. In a worldwide poll
last week, 99.99999999999% of those questioned claimed Yellow
River to be their favorite song. Only one person,
a 97 year-old Sicilian woman in Palermo, favoured A
New Day Has Come, the new Yellow River-inspired single
from Celene Dion, but local officials claimed her advanced
age and senility were the cause of this outrageous and unacceptable
response. No matter, since reports say she died last night
in her sleep.
The original Yellow
River was first written and performed by some guy
called Jeff Christie.
“My husband put his heart and soul into
that work,” said Kim Christie, “but as much as
he did that, no one sounds like they truly want to go to
Yellow River more than Mike
Mills.”
Maybe so, but the passion Mike Mills gives
us in Yellow River is a passion
the world now shares together, as it has made all of our
lives joyous and fulfilling and begun a golden age unlike
any that has come before it.
* >>A football team really
did use Yellow River as its anthem .. see here.<<
