Tedium - To Boldly Sing 🖖 🎸

Where no musician has gone before (well, not really)

Last year, I discovered something rather silly: a radio station with an apostrophe in its call letters. I joked with Ernie that it reminded me of the Klingon language. This led to a very interesting journey about Klingon that ended up going pretty far and even made an appearance on Vice’s Motherboard—something for which I am eternally grateful. Revisiting this idea only further brings home the point that science fiction television can be a goldmine for weird stuff.

Star Trek has always been a great source of humor. Where Deep Space Nine and Picard readily take on more serious themes, there’s something to be said about the ever present sense of humor that runs a deep vein through most Trek shows. It’s in “The Trouble With Tribbles,” all over TNG (especially in some of Riker’s most memorable scenes), interspersed between more maudlin moments of DS9, and encapsulated by certain characters on Voyager. And that’s only naming a few shows! It’s not difficult to see the humor in the shows.

A few years ago, a surprising new Star Trek show was announced, focusing on the non-bridge crew of a “second contact” starship called The Cerritos. That show was Star Trek: Lower Decks. Created by Mike McMahan (who also worked on shows like Rick & Morty and Solar Opposites), the show centers on a few quirky characters who aren’t officers but perform the ship’s grunt work. It’s hysterical and the characters are quite fun to spend 22 minutes with each episode.

With Star Trek: Lower Decks already two seasons into its run and a plethora of Trek shows coming out, it’s almost as if a renaissance for the series is upon us. Also, Strange New Worlds looks amazing.

Lower Decks goes out of its way to take itself less seriously, proving there’s definitely some room for a bit of comedy interspersed with the more abstract seriousness the show often aims to hit. What Lower Decks does so well is how it leverages that crazy sense of humor into the fandom at large. It sort of reminds me of what happens when enthusiastic, musically inclined fans get together to write songs about the show.

Music has always been integral to Star Trek. From the opening theme of Star Trek (TOS) onward, music has been an integral part of Star Trek, inspiring viewers and musicians alike. While each show’s own music is instantly recognizable, the program also inspired a great deal of music by other artists (often related to TOS). You’ve probably heard “The Trouble With Klingons,” a pastiche created by Dennis Williams for a certain novelty song contest or “Spock Rap” by the animators at Will Vinton Studios (under the name The Neural Paralyzers) in the ’80s. Admittedly, not everything in this category is great, but there are plenty of gems around. Here are a few artists/songs that explore strange musical worlds, seek out new melodies, and boldly sing where no one has sung before!

You won’t find William Shatner’s The Transformed Man or Leonard Nimoy’s Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy here. Likewise, we won’t revisit the original Trek theme and its lyrics. Rather, these songs and sketches represent unique takes on Trek by various musicians and comedians past and present.

4. “Everything I Do, I Do with William Shatner,” Warp 11

”I don’t want to go to work, just wanna hang with Captain Kirk and if I had my way, I’d make it so…”

Dedicated to all things Trek, Sacramento’s Warp 11 built a career playing Trek-themed music. Originally devised as a “band that only plays Trek songs” for a one-time video project of bass player/singer Karl Miller, the idea stuck and Warp 11 was born. Two decades and six albums later, the band is still on their musical journey.

Through incredible energy, crunchy electric guitar, and hilarious lyrics, “Everything I Do, I Do with William Shatner” from 2002’s Red Alert perfectly reflects the band’s “mission statement” —to convert listeners into Trek fans. Despite its title, the song is about Captain Kirk rather than Shatner himself.

Effortlessly juxtaposing the manic energy of The Presidents of the United States of America and the killer chops of The Ramones with a wider mix of blues, rock, and punk styles. Add their DIY punk-meets-TOS cosplay aesthetic, and you get one very eclectic listening/visual experience.

With Warp 11, you’ll find songs about Q and Betazoids, an entire album covering The Borg, and a few sporadic tunes about Voyager. The band’s healthy mix of TOS and TNG material is the epitome of Trek music created by fans, for fans.

While I enjoy their music, it skews toward a teenager/adult audience and is definitely not for kids. Warp 11 are well known for their sense of humor and double entendre and they can be a bit R-rated at times, with mildly NSFW album art. Some of their stuff can be a bit of an acquired taste, but if you dig pink, scifi, humor, and Star Trek, they’re worth checking out!

For those interested in Warp 11, start with Red Alert, then dive into any of their post-2007 work from It’s Dead Jim onward, available at their website and most streaming services.

(via Terry McGovern’s website)

2. “Beam me up Scotty,” Terry McGovern

”Beam me up Scotty, oh beam me up Scotty, life sure is trouble below …”

Terry McGovern is known today for his voice acting (he was the voice of Launchpad McQuack in the original Duck Tales), but he began his career as a radio broadcaster. Later, he would work in movies and television as well. In 1976, he released a Trek song of his own, “Beam me up, Scotty” on Baseball Records as a B-side to his rendition of the classic tune “Pachalafaka.” You can hear the entire thing on SoundCloud.

Not to be confused with an obscure country tune of the same name, McGovern’s song is a quiet rumination on how boring/awful life on earth can seem sometimes. The singer longs to join the crew of The Enterprise and escape the banality of modern life.

The song received airplay on various radio shows, but languished in obscurity for years until being officially re-released on a compilation album in the early 2000s. While it may not be the most well known Trek tune, it’s certainly well loved.

McGovern regularly attends conventions and teaches acting classes—on top of his legendary voice work.

When I originally outlined this—several years ago now—it had quite a few more songs. But over time, my interest and enthusiasm for Trek has waned somewhat.

And of course we couldn’t fit all of our favorite goofy science fiction songs into this piece. But there are plenty of great Trek bands around like “one-chord punk rockers” No Kill I (and NKI: the Next Generation and NKI:Deep Space Nine; they’re all different bands), modern filkers Ookla the Mok, and the Klingon metal group Stovokor, whose performances take Trek music to the next level.

Songs and sketches about Trek continue to endure well into the 21st century and beyond and it will be interesting to see what strange musical moments the future of Trek fandom holds.

And although this piece no longer resembles anything close to the original idea I had for it, I’m glad I was able to take a quick reprieve from the insanity of our modern world to find—and share—some humor from the bridge of The Enterprise that can still resonate with audiences today.

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Thanks again to David for the great piece. Find this one a worthy read? Share it with a pal! And see you all next week.