Yes, "Double Trouble" is very, very good. Before you're even done listening to the song for the first time, you'll want to hear it again. And while "Ja Ja Ding Dong" has gotten much of the attention, "Double Trouble" was a song we simply needed. Summer has arrived; July 4th is just around the corner; COVID-19 is still raging strong. We needed something fun. We needed something exciting. We needed a banger for summer 2020. Sorry Drake, Sorry Ariana, Sorry GagaWill Ferrell has taken your spot this year.
Part of what makes "Double Trouble" great is that it includes the criteria that make any great parody work: not only does it specifically make light and blow up some qualities of what it's spoofing, but it also works effectively as part of the very genre it's spoofing.
In an interview with Vulture, Savan Kotecha, who was the executive producer of the movie's soundtrack, said that he put the song together with Rami Yacoub (another Swedish producer) and Arnr Birgisson, an Icelandic songwriter/producer. The goal, Kotecha says, was to make a fun song that started like a folk song and builds to a giant chorus, and it did exactly that. But while the song has an undeniably catchy hook, it also includes lyrics that are only somewhat make sense.
"We wanted to make sure it felt like a big melody and with lyrics that almost felt they were Google Translated from another language back to English," Kotecha said.
And that explanation makes perfect sense when you listen more closely to the lyrics. Take this one example, a complete verse from Ferrell's character.
Never felt this alive Loving you's my nine to five Nothing makes me feel like you do Up is down, down is up I don't really give a what I just wanna break every rule
The "Up is down, down is up" is absolutely something we've all seen when getting a 40% accurate translation from Google Translate. The random "I just wanna break every rule" at the end is divine. Even the song's hook, which will be stuck in my head for the rest of my life, is the kind of empty hook that means absolutely nothing.
Hey baby, when you look at me I know I'm in double trouble tonight
What does that mean? Absolutely nothing! Which is why it's perfect, and I love it.
It's a bit shocking, actually, that it took until year 25 of Ferrell's acting career for him to play any sort of pop star. Think about itthe man who's played [deep breath] a news anchor, an evil fashion designer, a NASCAR driver, a cop who carries a wooden gun, a refrormed reformed adult frat boy, a cocky basketball player, a cocky figure skater, a rich guy being sent to prison, a dad with an illegal underground casino in his home, and an absolutely ridiculous version of Sherlock Holmes somehow made it through the American Idol and The Voice era without ever playing a character in a similar world. Luckily, that wrong was rightedand it made for his funniest outing in about a decade.
It's actually not the first time Ferrell tested his windpipes out, thoughin the 2005 musical adaptation of Mel Brooks' Tony-wining The Producers musical, he played Franz Liebkind, a Nazi who sings a few songs in the purposefully-awful show at the story's center.
It's also very fun. It's not a secret to literally anyone that this Ferrell guy has a bit of stage presence.
But it did come as a welcomed surprise that Ferrell's new presence as a pop star of sortscombined on screen with McAdams and on the recording track with the hybrid "My Marianne,"might just wind up saving the summer. How many times did I say I played "Double Trouble" before? 12? Since starting to write this, that number has increased to 16. And it's only going to keep going up from there.
