A colleague recently sent around this quote from a university CTO he interviewed for an upcoming article: "We're not building some generic Joni Mitchell cloud. The thing we're trying to do is build a cloud that is really infrastructure and services, not some vanilla, virtualized blah, blah, blah."
No generic Joni Mitchell cloud for these guys; no sir, no way. And there's no need to explain the Mitchell reference, either, at least not if you're of a certain age and/or taste in music. (Others can watch this YouTube video to get the gist.)
After chuckling at the quote, my first thought was to write a parody of cloud computing based on the lyrics from Mitchell's 1969 folk hit "Both Sides Now." My second thought was that someone most likely had already done so. And, sure enough, someone has, that someone being Bruce Kerr, a.k.a. "Loose Bruce Kerr" - "as featured on the Dr. Demento & Jim Bohannon Shows" - who when not performing parodies is, oddly enough, an in-house attorney at Oracle.
(2011's 25 Geekiest 25th Anniversaries)
Some of you have seen it already, but for everyone else here is Kerr's April, 2009 rendition of "It's Cloud Computing," followed by a brief Q&A with me and the parody lyrics:
We swapped some e-mail:
What was the inspiration/back story for "It's Cloud Computing"?
At the time I was assistant general counsel at Sun Microsystems, sometimes supporting the "Sun Grid" team. The Joni Mitchell song was crying out to be parodied on this subject.
How was your song received at the time of its release?
Lots of hits on YouTube, lots of comments from IT folks; they seemed to like it, particularly the "with Rajeesh on the phone" line. Don't get me wrong, while frustrated in the past at home with such long support calls to India years ago (I'm on a an iMac now and those days are gone, I'm happy to say), I deal with a lot of outsourced teams in India with my job here at Oracle now, and we all are on very friendly and supportive terms. It was the old support calls to India regarding my PC that gave birth to that line.
Have you gotten much reaction to it over the subsequent two years? Any stories to tell?
Some IT folks have used the video on a big screen at conferences, that sort of thing. I think a company in Germany is using it for their "hold music" for conference calls; I remember giving permission on that.
Cloud computing has really exploded over the past two years; how do you think your song holds up?
I hope it's more relevant today than earlier, as the whole area is expanding, but we'll see. Parodies can often get dated pretty quickly.
Here are Kerr's lyrics:
"IT'S CLOUD COMPUTING"
(to the tune: "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell)
By Loose Bruce Kerr
LANs and WANs and endless cords
Your system's down, then techie hoardes
Huge data centers you can ill afford
I've seen I.T. that way
But now we're in another age
Technology has turned the page
Computing's reached another stage
Behold the brand new day
CHORUS I:
I.T. is in the blue sky now
My local storage won't allow
IT'S CLOUD COMPUTING I want now
Who needs a server farm anyhow?
Lines and lines of APIs
And hardware systems I can't buy
With tech support, oh me, oh my
I've suffered in that zone
But costs keep spiraling out of sight
Right as my budget's gotten tight
Let me never spend another night
With Rajeesh on the phone
CHORUS II:
I’ve lived with I.T. up and down
My cards and tape drives abound
IT'S CLOUD COMPUTING I choose now
Just plug me in, all on, oh wow
©2009 Broken Records & Marjori
Maybe someone else has done it better; maybe someone else will in the future. But I'm not going to try.
Welcome regulars and passersby. Here are a few more recent buzzblog items. And, if you’d like to receive Buzzblog via e-mail newsletter, here’s where to sign up. Follow me on Twitter here.
- 18 holes, 18 shots: IT pro puts up rarest of rare Putt-Putt perfection.
- Brookstone needs to accept that Mom is a tough sell.
- Programmer unknowingly live blogs raid that killed Bin Laden.
- Captain Midnight: 'No regrets' about jamming HBO back in '86
- Wozniak questions long-accepted date of “Day One” at Apple.
- 35 years of ‘Apple’ Fools Day fun
- Groupon vs. the price of gasoline.
- On the company dime: Rogue game server admins tell all
- World of Warcraft player offers $1,000 bribe.
- Tech ‘firsts’ that made a President’s day.
- If you had bought 100 shares of Microsoft 25 years ago …
