Those who thought Neil Cicierega’s Mouth Sounds album had exhausted the comedic possibilities of Smash Mouth’s “All Star” thought wrong. Make no mistake: “All Star” will always be funny. Even after 17 years of burrowing its way into the collective subconscious, that ubiquitous, late ’90s radio smash is an inexhaustible source of mirth. “All Star” by Smash Mouth may well be the internet’s greatest renewable resource. It will always be there, ready to inspire another parody, mashup, or remix. Just this week, an off-tempo version of the song with the vocals a beat ahead of the music tickled the web’s fancy. And now, musical funster Erik Helwig, a.k.a. Hot Dad, has gifted the world with his version: an “inverted cover” of “All Star” that simply takes each line of the song and rearranges the words in reverse order.
The musical backing has been left intact. Why tamper with perfection, after all? In performing the lead vocals, Helwig manages to do a capable imitation of Smash Mouth vocalist Steve Harwell as well. In fact, he brings an impressive half-frat boy, half-Yoda vibe such inverted lyrical gems as: “Bored get never I’ll and it like I way the that’s.” A listener who was only half paying attention might even mistake this cover for the original, if it was playing on a tinny-sounding boombox at a pool party or blaring from the P.A. system at a roller rink.
[via Twitter]