When I caught Bob Wayne live a couple of years back, he had to repeatedly tell a drunk woman down front that he doesn’t do covers. She kept calling out songs, and he kept telling her, more politely than she deserved by the end, that he only played Bob Wayne songs.
That was before the bad bet.
I’m not sure if this cover arose from a real-world bet that Bob lost, but I’d lay money on it. In the video for “All About that Bass,” he walks in on a friend with a new pistol preparing to shoot an apple off another guy’s head. Bob Wayne tells the friend there’s no challenge at this range, which leads to a bet. If Wayne can make the shot, he gets the pistol. If not, he has to record any song the friend names. Let’s just say things don’t go well for the guy with the apple on his head, and as Wayne reacts in shock to what he’s just done, a deeper horror sets in as he realizes what he has to do now.
It’s all in fun. I’m pretty sure no one was actually injured if there were a real-life bet involved — at least not permanently — but it would seem that the stakes were similar.
Enter Meghan Trainor.
Being a good sport, Bob Wayne gets a bunch of friends together with a video camera and gives it his all on the pop hit that’s about the last thing you’d ever expect him to do for his first cover tune. He gives the song a Spanish flavor and actually makes it very listenable in a goofy sort of way. Then he and his friends ham it up for the camera, actually cracking themselves up in some parts of the video.
No, it certainly doesn’t display the maturity or songwriting prowess of Wayne’s last album, quite the opposite in fact. But it’s a fun and funny few minutes of video. I wouldn’t expect to see the cover pop up on Bob Wayne’s next album or in his live show … but you never know. After all, he is a gambling man.
