Tune the Car Musically

Happy early Birthday to my father-in-law, sister-in-law, and nephew! So many birthdays this weekend. 

Explanation: Tuning a car and tuning an instrument are not very similar but we use the same word for both. Why is English like this.

Text:
A: Are you ready to tune the car? *holding a wrench*
B: To the key of C. *holding a tuning fork*
A: What?
B: What?

Vegetable Musicians

I have not thought up any songs this group would sing, but I'm sure there's plenty of puns to choose from. I don't feel like looking up the difference between chives, scallions, and spring onions but I feel like they're used interchangeably. 

Explanation: Chives and scallions are similar vegetables. A rapscallion is a mischievous person. I didn't realize no spelling change was needed for the band name pun. Also, with a letter swap, a "mischiveous" vegetable is a spring onion up to no good. 

Text:
B: You chives are making horrible music!
RS: We're the RapScallions. 

Shofar So Good

 

I thought this up at my cousin's wedding reception when I saw my niece standing on a large rock and blowing on a big stick that had a distinctive twist in it. I have only heard a shofar once, and that was back in college when I was leaving my Bible class - I heard a peculiar noise and looked over and there was my future brother-in-law, blowing a shofar in front of his class. Apparently they had waited until the class hour was over so that they wouldn't disturb the other classes, but this meant that many students witnessed this event.

Text:
M: Is that ram's horn working out as a trumpet for you?
P: It is shofar.

July Fourth Medley

 

Get ready for the Independence Day concerts! We can only hope they pick someone who can truly sing the national anthem because you need a range and it can be done quite poorly. I saw a ranking somewhere of all the singers who've sung the anthem at NFL games and it was rather fascinating. But I don't remember where it was. But this would be an interesting medley to hear - each singer picks a song on the fly based on the last word of the previous phrase. 

Text:
A: ♬ O say, can you see -
B: ♬ See clearly now the rain -
C: ♬ Raining, oh baby it's raining, raining ♬

Blink182

 

True story, except this exchange happened in the car and it was a bumper sticker on someone else's car - but I prefer drawing stick figures over cars, so this is my interpretation based on a true story. Punk bands were very popular back when I was in high school but way back then I just listened to music on the radio and knew nothing about the artists so I'd know all the lyrics and music but be clueless about the band. One way this showed up was when I was quietly singing something around the house and my husband asked "is that Yellow Card or Green Day?" and I didn't have a clue (I don't recall the song so I can't say which one it was). 

Explanation: This is basically like when my grandparents tell each other that all their friends are getting old, what is with that?

Text:
L: That's a Blink182 sticker - how old is she?
M: She looks about our age.
L: ... yeah, that checks out.

Cerulean Dion

 

Ever since making this comic, I cannot think of Ms. Dion's first name correctly (it's Céline). 

We kept the genders of our children a secret before they were born and it was interesting to see how adamant people were that we were having a boy or girl when they had absolutely nothing to go on other than their feelings. Also, there was a time I dressed my daughter in a blue floral dress (with a flower hat) and I had someone say they couldn't tell if she was a boy or girl because the blue. That was a confusing conversation. And in case you're wondering, the shade of blue that is a girl's name is Alice Blue. 

Text:
B: Blue is a boy color!
R: Because clearly there isn't a girl name that's literally a shade of blue.
B: ... What?
R: You know, the famous singer - Cerulean Dion!

Coral Choral Chorale

So many words sound like "coral" and mean totally different things - a color, a sea critter, an animal enclosure, putting animals in an enclosure, a musical number, and probably more! I couldn't fit them all in this comic, but I did look up the hex code for coral and used it for the bandanas. 

Explanation: chorale is a musical term and it sounds like corral which means to round up animals into a confined space. Basically this cowboy is going to have some musical animals but he really wanted them to be put back where they belong. 

Text:
A: Why did you hire a music director as a ranch hand?
B: He's gonna chorale the animals. 

Hymn Singing

 

I thought of this during a music service and now I think of it nearly every time the music leader uses this phraseology when explaining when we are singing the chorus. So clearly he's meaning sing verses one, two, then the chorus, then verse three etc. But the phrase could be taken to mean either singing verses one and two at the same time (would be the same tune but conflicting words) or we only need to stay together for the first two verses (would be discordant afterwards as everyone does what seems the right pace in their own eyes). 

Text:
Title: Hymn with four verses
P: Sing verses one and two together.
S: Like, at the same time?
L: Do we all go our own pace on the other verses?
Postscript: He meant skip the chorus between those verses.

Alexa, Wrong Song 2

Happy December!
So apparently "Everyday I'm Shuffling" is a line from "Party Rock Anthem" and that could be an explanation for the scenario in the previous comic. Still not sure many times what's going on with Alexa's music selection. There was one time we asked her to play Indian Restaurant music (because we were cooking Indian food for dinner) and she said she couldn't because we have a "no explicate music" filter that blocks said things and I don't know why there was an overlap between the two, but I'm glad we have that filter to stop very wrong selections from automatically happening. 

Text:
L: Alexa, play "Sunday Everyday" on shuffle.
A: Playing "Everyday I'm Shuffling" by -
L: Alexa STOP.

Alexa, Wrong Song 1

 

So I have a playlist called "Sunday Everyday" and I like it - it's songs that we've sung at my church or my parent's church or just nice one from the local Christian radio stations. It does not have any party rock anthems. I tried looking into the Alexa app to see what she thought I had said, but I couldn't find that recording after a quick search and just gave up. 

Text:
L: Alexa, play "Sunday Everyday."
A: Playing "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO.
L: That's not even close!

Cup of Honey

My Mark says a cup of honey would not be good, and I agree. Having a cup of tea with some honey is a good thing, or putting honey on toast, but just honey as the star is a bit much. Song mashups are fun to do, especially if you are fortunate enough to be flipping through the radio stations and the songs just line up perfectly. This comic was sparked by two songs that I heard near each other, so probably in the same car trip, but not perfectly lined up as portrayed above. But it all clicked together in my head hence this earworm of a comic :)

Text:
A: 𝆕 Fill my cup, Lord! 𝆕
B: 𝆕 With honey from the Rock 𝆕

Note: I now realize the lyrics are "Honey in the Rock" but that doesn't quite fit my comic so I'm claiming artistic liberty. 

My Romantic Chemicals

 

Above, the generic comic. Below, the one that came to mind after remembering that Batman, in The Batman, listens to My Chemical Romance. 

So this comic was inspired when I saw "MRC" graffitied on a dump truck. Those happen to be the initials of at least two of my family members, so there's that too. In the movie mentioned above, there is a scene where MCR is playing loudly and when something happens to shift the focus, Batman turns down his music and you realize it wasn't just movie magic music, he really was blasting music in his cave. I liked that detail. Also I totally think a young sidekick/partner would refer to music from two decades ago as oldies. Wow, 2001 was when MCR started and that was two decades ago. Bleh. 

Explanation: the band is "My Chemical Romance" and usually abbreviated MCR. The young person flips the words to be "My Romantic Chemicals" which seems like a different sort of band. 

Text:
R: Holy Oldies, Batman! It's that band you like - My Romantic Chemicals!
B: *facepalm*

Problem Solving vs Elimination

Happy almost Anniversary to us! Our marriage is gonna be a teenager. Weird.
This comic came about on a road trip where I was sitting in the back to help Lucy keep calm, and my Jeep has a speaker right between where I was in the back and where Mark was in the driver seat. There are (at least) two mindsets when it comes to problems - solve the issue or eliminate the issue. Solving the issue of the radio overpowering our conversation would be to simply turn down the radio or change our seating. Elimination the issue would involve probably rewiring my car's sound system. One is much simpler than the other, but simpler isn't always better. 

Text:
M: We could have this awesome setup -
L: OR we could just turn down the radio.
M: I want to eliminate the problem, not solve it!

Political Band Dissolvement

Happy Independence Day Eve! Last year we were reading the Constitution and I noticed the phrase about dissolving political bands and this comic came into being. Did I look up the Founding Fathers and draw their hairstyles slightly correctly? Perhaps. I had something else to say about the Founding Fathers.... OH so I was at my in-laws and the topic of road trip playlists came up and I decided one car (our family was all going up to New Hampshire for a week together and there are several carloads going) needs to play Hamilton on repeat, but it's the Muppets Hamilton. Does such a thing exist? I feel like it could. All of the cast is Muppets except Alexander Hamilton is still played by Lin-Manuel. 

Text:
G. Washington: Dissolve these political bands!
FEDeralists: *silent*
DEM-REPS: *silent*

Judging Music

 

Not a Nebraska comic! Gonna switch it up and mix in some new ones. So my husband and I have different tastes in music, namely that he has a wider range than I do of what he deems acceptable. Sometimes when I walk by his office (he works from home), I just have to comment. That's all, no judgement here :) 

Text:
Title: *barely melodic noises*
L: Not to judge, but what the heck are you listening to?
M: I feel judged. 

Shot the Heart

 

I don't recall what sparked this one, but it's what I think of now when I hear that classic Bon Jovi song. Guess that lady is giving love a bad, bad name. Oh, I have the lyrics wrong - it's "Shot through the heart" not "Shot to the heart." I'm deciding that's intentional, and that's why the lady is saying it's a miss. Because he messed up the lyrics. 

Text:
A: 🎵 Shot to the Heart - 🎵
B: Miss.

Sound Mixers

 

I thought this up in our church's sound booth. Sound mixers and kitchen mixers are vastly different tools. Now I'm wondering what a kitchen tool that mixed sounds would look like - how to give it input, get the mixer mixing, and get the output. I feel that could be a cool picture but I'm not up for drawing it - maybe someone else will be inspired to do so. 

Text:
A: Where are your sound mixers? Do you carry analog ones?
W: Sir, this is a KitchenAidⓇ store. 

A Cue Stick

 

I had to look up how to spell "billiards" and now the search probably things I'm into pool. I'm not - I have never been good at it but have played a few times when I was younger and we knew someone/someplace that had a pool table. I forget how I thought up this excellent pun but I like it a lot. "Acoustic" is kind of the opposite of "electric" when it comes to music - it's very peaceful and also the word sounds like "a cue stick" which is what is used in billiards/pool to hit the balls. But I just looked it up and actually there is the over-arching term "Cue Sports" which is also known as billiards but it includes many games that are played with a cue stick including but not limited to pool. And just thought I'd note that "billiards hall" reminds me of the game Clue where there's a billiards room and that might be where I learned the word "billiards." It's not a common one nowadays. 

Text:
A: Why is classical guitar music playing in the billiards hall?
B: It's a-cue-stick!

Nature Sounds

We've been having some nice weather which means most days we have some windows open, provided they aren't making too much noise with the construction on our block (someone is putting in a new house and another is replacing their deck). There are lots of birds in our area which make for relaxing nature noise. Pretty soon the seventeen year cicadas are gonna emerge (I saw my first exoskeleton today when I went to get the mail) (today is about two weeks ago because the baby is sleeping so I'm scheduling comics while the peace lasts) and once they are all out and about we might want the windows closed again. Bleh, they are gross. Leaving their shells all around. 

Text:
L: Want to listen to some music or just nature sounds?
M: Nature sounds are good.
L: Ok - Alexa, play nature sounds.

Never Fully Dressed Without A

 I'm sure someone else has done this already but I don't recall what got this song in my head then I just needed to get it comic'd out. Yes, that is Little Orphan Annie from the musical, "Little Orphan Annie." It has been a while since I watched it, I think the last time was a live performance by a high school group but it was several years ago. We had the Carol Burnett version on VHS growing up so that's the one I'm most familiar with. It would be rather different if Annie was adopted by Fauci, I feel like there's a pandemic variant (haha, maybe not the best wording) that could be made with that idea. 

I thought about drawing cute designs on the masks but that was quickly determined to be too tedious. 

Annie is singing without a mask, I feel like the comic needs a disclaimer like commercials have about 'closed course' or 'filmed responsibly' or whatever they're saying now. 

Text:
Annie: (singing) You're never fully dressed without a -
Dr. Fauci: MASK!!! *with two handfuls of masks, wearing two masks and a face shield*