A musical mash-up

You may or may not be familiar with Taylor Swift's song Love Story. It's a modern take on Romeo Juliet and the lyrics are quite clever, in my opinion. I rather like it.



You are more likely to be familiar with Coldplay's Viva la Vida, which includes the line "when I ruled the world". I recently saw a video of a young man with a guitar leading a group of ordinary kids in a school hall singing this song and it moved me profoundly. I wanted to share it on here, but it wasn't a YouTube video and I couldn't find the source to do so. You'll have to 'settle' for the original artists ;o)



Can you hear it? The rhythmic similarity? Jon Schmidt picked up on it, and created this mashup for his seven year old daughter who loves the Taylor Swift song. This is the result.



This fills my mind with half-formed analogies for learning that I can't quite verbalise. Things relating to the lyrics and the titles of the songs, to the seamlessness of the integration, to the way the piano and the cello work together: so different, so complementary, to the overlap between these two songs that it took a fine ear to pick up in the first place. My mind is roiling.

Watch the videos and, if nothing else, be inspired and uplifted by the music.