Days 12-14: What the %#@*@ does Steampunk sound like?

Victorian, antiquated, and yes...douchey!

We all know what Steampunk looks like …Victorian, antiquated, and yes…douchey! (Although girls with bandages are hot- but only if they’re hot to begin with!) I’ve spent many hours discussing this fashion-based genre with my good friend Mr. Joseph Nugent, particularly about what the %#@*@ does steampunk sounds like. He challenged me to include a steampunk song on this album and I went looking on YouTube for something that sounded definitively Steampunk but there isn’t anything. There’s no Sunny Day Real Estate of Steampunk. I’ve checked. It’s a lot of people with drum circles and fiddles on YouTube calling themselves steampunk. There’s nothing steamy or punky about either. Discuss.

I did attend a concert at the Sail Inn concert by the band March Forth last fall and excellent though it was,  I didn’t come away with the sense of “So, that’s steampunk.” It was more like New Orleans Mardi Gras parade music. I’d imagined steampunk to be more like Bell & Sebastian’s “Step Into My Office, Baby.”

So before writing the song with Mr. Nugent’s help, I did a short list of what ingredients we thought a steampunk song oughta have:

1. Someone indignant, firing off an angry letter with “Good sir!” at the top
2. Marching beats, ala March Forth
3. Steampipes, flutes and horns
4. A Victorian typewriter clattering  in the background
5. Sound effects of men huffing and puffing

Joe suggested writing a song about “Queensbury Rules” about the formal rules of boxing. That’s a really great idea  so I got down to it and the results are in. As far as we’re concerned Steampunk sounds like…drumroll please…. Paul McCartney & Wings. C’mon, “Let Em In,” “Uncle Albert,” “Famous Groupies,”and even “Magneto and Titanium Man” (all right, maybe just the indignant part for that one) strike me as being steampunk.  And reaching back, I’d say “Penny Lane” was what I’d hope steampunk to be and maybe really is. Great Sir Paul! You get to be the Godfather of Steampunk as well. At least at  the Serene Dominic domicile.