Celebrating Creativity: Somebody That I Used To Know

It is always fascinating to see how creativity feeds and inspires creativity.  It’s a cycle that happens within and across every field imaginable.  Ask any inventor, artist, writer, musician, designer or engineer — they seek and find inspiration anywhere and everywhere.

Somebody That I Used To Know
by Australian-Belgian singer /songwriter Gotye, featuring New Zealand singer/guitarist Kimbra.

It starts with a thought, idea, image, word, or sound that captures our imagination and connects to our heart and mind in a way so deeply personal that our own creative spark is ignited and burns with a need to lay personal claim to the connection in recognition of it’s impact.

Goyte Cover by Walk off the Earth

Goyte Cover by Mike Dawes

In the process of personalizing our connection, the original creative elements tend to morph in surprising and unique ways that in turn captures the attention and imagination of even more people, whose creativity is ignited, stirring their need to in turn lay claim and personalize it…

Parodies of Goyte: Mario & Zelda Pop Parody

Parody of Walk Off The Earth’s Goyte Cover by Key of Awesome

And so the creative sparks continue to ignite and spread over an ever expanding universe.  Even reluctantly, at times.

That Goyte Song

I’ve been thoroughly entertained and fascinated to watch the multitude (there must be hundreds by now) of Some Body That I Use To Know interpretations  in covers, parodies, cover of covers, and parodies of covers that have sprung up on YouTube over the last summer.

It’s particularly impressive to realize that these interpretations drew the song across just about every demographic imaginable within a few short months.

How wise for Gotye to embraced these personalized connections to his song and recognize them for the personal tributes that they are and celebrate them accordingly.

Gotye – Somebodies: A YouTube Orchestra

*Update *
Gotye explains to The Austin Chronicle about his mashup video of the covers and parodies in”Somebodies”:

In that six minutes, it just about covers all of my feelings about the song and what’s happened to it—some really poignant things and beautiful moments and some absolutely absurd, hilariously shit moments and a lot of stuff in between. It was also a genuine thank you to all of the people who, in some cases, spent an incredible amount of time parodying the artwork. It takes a long time to paint a wall and yourself.

In our social media driven lives today, we are encourage to participate and celebrate our media creativity.

I hope it also ignites an urge in everyone to explore and celebrate their personal creativity across all interests and endeavors.

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