The other day, my old friend Alex posted a list of Corona-related song titles to Facebook. I replied with a few of my own, including Pfizer Muggin’, with which I was absurdly pleased. It had to be done.

So here it is:

Pfizer Muggin’ boom
Pfizer Muggin’ bam
Pfizer Muggin’ boom
It’s a scratch you won’t feel a thing

Pfizer Muggin’ boom (or Moderna)
Pfizer Muggin’ bam (or Moderna)
Pfizer Muggin’ boom (or Moderna)
Astra Zeneca’s too hard to scan

No-one knows just how it started
Someone got sick in Wuhan
Then it spread like wildfire
Round the world the pandemic began

We all spent a year in lockdown
Till the vaccines came around
Two jabs and then a booster
Keeps your chance of dying down

Pfizer Muggin’ boom (no Corona)
Pfizer Muggin’ bam (no Corona)
Pfizer Muggin’ boom (no Corona)
It’s a scratch you won’t feel a thing

Now there’s a crazy variation
Omicron is coming through
Sweeping all across the nation
You all know what you got to do

You may be asymptomatic
Have the Rona and not be ill
Get the jab and while you’re at it
Keep your mask on to be safer still

Pfizer Muggin’ ooh (or Moderna)
Pfizer Muggin’ ow (or Moderna)
Pfizer Muggin’ boom (or Moderna)
Astra Zeneca’s too hard to scan

Pfizer Muggin’ boom (no Corona)
Pfizer Muggin’ bam (no Corona)
Pfizer Muggin’ boom (oh Corona)
It’s a scratch you won’t feel a thing

Not so much a filk as a PSA.

I’m particularly pleased with how it came out because this is my first attempt at one of those multiple-selves music videos, and it turns out that I was able to record all the video segments using only my phone. By starting with the main part, being bass and vocals part, and playing along to that in the others without using headphones, I ended up with an audio mix that automatically slightly boosted the main part at the expense of the others (they both have it in the background), meaning that it didn’t need any tweaking at all. This is the kind of workflow I can get behind, and I hope to make more of this kind of thing, especially with the current Not Going Anywhere Due To COVID situation.

Yes, the audio in the two backing parts does get just slightly out of sync towards the end. That’s annoying, but it’s only very slight and didn’t seem worth fixing for a filk of this sort.

If you’re wondering how the hell this is a filk, you may not have heard of the wonderful I’s A Muggin’ by Stuff Smith. My version is based on Django Reinhart’s, which is much easier to filk.

I urge you listen to both.