Talkin' 'bout Minecraft
Why would I write songs about a world made out of blocks?
Hello. You’ve reached Time & Temperature.
It’s a world made out of blocks/And it totally rocks.
These are words I never imagined I’d sing into a microphone. But there I was, not just singing these words, but really emoting them a la Jack Black, whose vocal style is powerful in a mostly ironic way, but powerful nonetheless. What’s more I was trying to sound like Jack Black because I’d written the song hoping he’d sing it in his Minecraft movie.
SPOILER ALERT: he did not.
In case you don’t know what Minecraft is, WHO ARE YOU AND IN WHAT PARISIAN CAFÉ ARE YOU CURRENTLY WRITING POETRY? Suffice to say, kids love it, as do adults who have been kids at any point during the last 20 years. It’s, as they say, a whole thing.
A few days before Christmas 2023, I received an email from a publishing company emissary, asking me to take a crack at writing some songs for Jack Black to sing in Warner Brothers’ upcoming Minecraft movie. I’d been chosen based mostly on a collaboration I did a few years ago with James Gunn. Together, James and I wrote the song “I Don’t Know What Christmas Is” that my alien character Bzermikitokolok sings in the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.
For the Minecraft opportunity, I received a “confidential deck” from the director Jared Hess whose brilliant film Napoleon Dynamite is an all-time favorite of mine. This deck included specific songs he needed for the film, along with vibe-comps (reference songs for sonic inspiration), guidelines for lyrics, even drawings of the characters. As is usually the case in Hollywood, they needed this stuff turned around pretty quickly—in fact one of the songs was to appear in a scene they would be shooting just after the beginning of the new year, so they told me to focus on that and get it to them ASAP.
I like a challenge, so as other folks were shopping and wrapping and caroling and guzzling egg nog, I was down in my basement studio channeling Jack Black trapped in a dungeon full of “piglins.” Weird! But as I said, I like a challenge, and I threw myself into this one. In the days leading up to Christmas I ignored my family, and created four distinct versions of the rush order song, sending them off one by one as soon as they were finished. I heard nothing back. So I started in on the other songs the Minecraft folks needed. I was into it now.
As that winter rolled on, I wrote and recorded multiple versions of each of the songs they’d charged me with, offering alternate sonic and lyrical approaches so that they’d have options. My favorite was a song I wrote for Jack to sing at the end of the movie, kind of a Minecraft theme called “Talkin’ ‘bout Minecraft.” When I finished that one, I thought to myself, there’s no way in hell they don’t use this.
SPOILER ALERT: they did not.
