Feel free to click on the first Global Song Competition post in which we determined “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” was Australia’s best ever contribution to music to learn the rules of this game. In short, we didn’t want to talk about the aftermath of the last regular season baseball series, so I started a distraction contest to...

...determine the greatest song of all time, based on my limited knowledge of music and other countries.

First, we’ll go with the smattering of countries I can accurately point to on a globe and spell correctly—sorry, Kyrgustan (nope: it was Kyrgyzstan)—and then, we’ll go state by state in the good ol’ US of A.

*Note: Feel free to disagree with my choices violently, and suggest better songs in the comments. I will not listen to you, nor will it affect the outcome of this ridiculous distraction contest, but I want you all to feel both seen and heard, even though I don’t know what most of you look like, nor sound like, but I want you all to feel effectively placated.

Today, we travel back to Medieval Times, where we plan to eat rotisserie chicken with our hands whilst drinking Pepsi: the official cola of Central Europe during the middle ages. The Holy Roman Empire spawned centuries of Frankish and then German kings, ruling over Central Europe from around 800-1806. As such, I will look into the best ever songs that are both from that era and generally Bohemian in nature.

The Songs

1) Mozart “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.“

You fuckers in the mood for a little bit of night-music? Then you’ve come to the right place. Oh, and I think now is the appropriate time to point out that Salieri and Mozart were friends, and not rivals in the way that ridiculous movie those high school kids tricked me into showing when I subbed for my high school’s band teacher when I was in college over Christmas Break portrayed.

Oh, I thought, “Wow, these kids must really be into music, what with wanting to watch Amadeus, when the lesson plans just said, ‘Put in a movie from my drawer.’” Seeing as I had only seen this film on TV prior to that moment, I did not realize there was a scene early on in which a big breasted woman was... umm... de-bloused.

This has been “Andrew VU ‘04’s early 20s sojourn into being tricked into showing Mozart porn by South Jersey teens.” Thank you for your time.

2) Hieronymous Bosch “Butt Music from his painting ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights.’”

Yes, this is the content I was looking for.

Listen, I’m pretty sure I’m summoning a demon just by playing this, but we’re all cool with that, right? Right.

Anyway, this was something I stumbled onto years ago when trying to find some songs to better convey the atmosphere of the Medieval Era whilst introducing Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to my students. What is this exactly? Well, as you may know if you’ve ever taken an art history course—or, like me, are a scholar of demonic butt music—Hieronymous Bosch’s hell-scape art has, tucked into it’s Medieval Where’s Waldo setting, a scene depicting a demon tattooing a melody on the buttocks of a damned soul. This song, I shit you not, is taken directly from the melody inscribed on those damned buttocks. If that isn’t the best thing you’ve learned all week, I’ll eat my hat.

Though by the time Bosch was born (somewhere between 1450 and 1456, as he was apparently one of those women who pretended to be 39 for at least 7 years), The Netherlands was no longer part of The Holy Roman Empire, it was a part of it from around 1000-1432, so I’mma grandfather this one in. I mean... butt music.

3) Aequilibrium “Medieval Tune. Hurdy-Gurdy With Organ.”

Though the composer of this is currently alive, and though not an immortal vampire, performs all of his songs on the medieval instrument “The Hurdy-Gurdy.” That more than qualifies for this competition.

Beyond that, it’s just fucking beautiful.

The Hurdy-Gurdy is basically the love-child of a lute and an organ, and was a popular peasant instrument in Central Europe during the middle ages. Shut up and eat your rotisserie chicken, drink your Pepsi, and root for the Blue Knight, you Petrarchan Sonnets.

*Note: I know full well that the term “Petrarchan Sonnet” is not an insult, but read it out loud and tell me you weren’t taken aback by my effrontery.

4) Nobuo Uematsu “The Place I’ll Return to Someday” (and some other shit).

Now this is the type of short-tunic and codpiece dancing jams that gave Geoffrey Chaucer his notorious “Playboy of the Court” image during his teen years. Also, I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns. Don’t vote for this crap. Just imagine the bard of Canterbury dancing about all nimbly-bimbly and making the ladies fair all wet up in that bitch.

Did I go too far with that paragraph? I’m being told no by the ghost of the guy who wrote “The Miller’s Tale.” Fair enough. You fuckers probably figured I couldn’t come up with four songs from The Holy Roman Empire. Never doubt me again.

Vote in the Poll (click on the tweet to vote on it, you crumb bums)

Honorable Mention

Just 40 Minutes of Straight Up Medieval Party Music.

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