Song Of The Day 5/10/2015: Richard Thompson – “Oops! I Did It Again”

Quarterly Covers Report: Richard Thompson’s 1000 Years of Popular Music is one of the greatest ideas since sliced jizmazaj. It’s a live album that came out in 2003. According to Wikipedia, that infallible source for info on the 500 Days Program and the USS Sagittarius, its genesis came when Playboy magazine – who apparently are still in the article-writing business – asked Thompson to pick some of his favorite songs of the last thousand years. The question may not have been intended to be taken quite so literally, but Thompson gave them exactly what they asked for: his favorite medieval ballads, 19th century death songs, sea chanties, operetta numbers, early jazz and standards, and light classical etudes. This is why folk musicians always have the best jokes.

Playboy did not run the article, but Thompson ran with the idea and played several shows, in which he covered songs of the last thousand years, I believe in chronological order. So you had traditional songs like “Sumer Is Icumen In,” “Dido’s Lament,” “Shenandoah” and “Waiting at the Church” rubbing up alongside “Orange-Coloured Sky,” the Who’s “A Legal Matter,” Prince’s “Kiss” and Squeeze’s “Tempted.”

And… this, a comic yet not defamatory version of Britney Spears’ “Oops! I Did It Again,” in which Richard Thompson reminds us that he, too, is not that innocent. None of us are. I especially like how he uses this song to bridge the entire project together in a very unlikely, yet logical way. I’m not sure how Thompson really feels about this song, but I would like to point out that he tolerated it enough to learn it.