'The Bluetooth Blues' (March 2000)

Recorded 22 March 2000, during a Bluetooth SIG Program Mgmnt / Marketing meeting / junket at the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden (n. of Artic Circle, in Lapland).

Intel's program Mgr (and SIG Chairman) Jim Kardach had the initial brainstorm for this song, though I wound up writing most of the lyrics. We passed it back and forth via e-mail in
Nov-Dec 1999, targeting it specifically for the Los Angeles Bluetooth Developers Conference, 7-9 Dec 1999 -- during which we introduced four new Promoter companies: Microsoft, 3Com, Motorola, and Lucent (Agere).

See Jim's blog for more of the story...

http://www.kardach.com/bluetooth/runic_stone_journal/Entries/2007/9/11_The_Bl...

Olli Mäkynen - keyboard
Roland Berg - vocals, guitar
Warren Allen - harmonica

Olli and Roland drove over from Finland, just for this performance. Olli's daughter Paivi was (still is?) one of the SIG's legal counsels.

Running through the song at the Ice Hotel was terrific fun for me, and probably a reasonably good time for the assembled PMs and Marketeers. Paivi determined for me in advance that Roland would want to sing it in C, so I picked up a Special 20 harp in F -- which I thought might be too high and squeeky for blues, but it seemed to work out pretty well...


1. I got the Bluetooth Blues, you know I'm workin' round the clock... I got the Bluetooth Blues, just trying to get these things to talk... King Harald won't you help me, won't you climb down off that rock?!

2. Well I woke up this mornin', there was Promoters in my bed... Yeah I woke up this mornin', Promoters crawlin' in my bed... Well there used to be five, now there's nine... man I wish I was dead!

3. I got the Bluetooth Blues, you know it's somethin' 'bout the spec. I got the Bluetooth Blues, it's makin' me a nervous wreck, They're saying 1.0 ain't enough, we gotta stack more cards in that deck!

4. I have all of these cables now, and none of them do the trick I have tons of cables, babyUUUUand none of them seem to fit But with some RF waves, I can forget about all that shit. [What?!]

CHORUS 1 -- to the tune of "Kansas City": Well I might take a train... I might take a plane... But this interoperation thing is drivin' me insane! I got the Bluetooth Blues, just trying to get these things to talk... King Harald won't you help me, won't you climb down off that rock?!

5. Well we got a new contract, it only took about nine months... Yeah we got a shiny new contract, you only have to sign it once... But don't forget to sign it, or someone might eat your lunch! [Look out...]

6. We've got Ericsson and Nokia... and Motorola makes three They rule the world of mobile phones, indisputa-bly...
Then there's IBM, and Toshiba, monsters of the mobile PC...

7. They all seem to get along, I'm not sure how that can be... We've got 3Com and Lucent, huge in TCP/IP... You know they're hip to Ethernet... even 802.11B.

CHORUS 2 -- to the tune of "Kansas City": We've got Intel writing software, Their new field of expertise... They're gonna suck a core into the Pentium III... I got the Bluetooth Blues, just trying to get these things to talk... King Harald won't you help me, won't you climb down off that rock?!

8. We finally pulled in Microsoft, fresh from the DOJ... We had to start using Windows, to get them to say OK! But now we can't say "Founders" or Microsoft ain't gonna play! [Just kidding...!?]

9. I got the Bluetooth Blues, you know I'm workin' round the clock... I got the Bluetooth Blues, just trying to get these things to talk... King Harald won't you help me, won't you climb down off that rock?!

Human-readable lyrics (and chords) here:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/warrenallen/songs.htm

http://warren-allen.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Warren
• Allen
• Olli
• Makynen
• Roland
• Berg
• Jim
• Kardach
• Bluetooth
• Blues

[whatbrains]

During a Bluetooth SIG Program! Couldn't have worked out any more perfect lol good playing. I'm trying to learn the harp myself.

[wa0000]

@whatbrains I see... Right! I thought you meant at the Ice Hotel, specifically (that was the venue, the SIG was having it's Program Mgmnt and Mktg meetings there). Good luck learning harp... I sure do enjoy it. I play a lot of 'straight harp' lately (in the named key of the harmonica), as opposed to 'cross harp' (in the key up a fifth from the named key.

[whatbrains]

You just happened to be at the perfect venue to preform a song like this lol

[wa0000]

@whatbrains How's that...?

[BalboaJay15]

its accualy pretty good and catchy

[wa0000]

You may be just hearing some marginal playing. The song is being played in C, which pretty much demands an F harmonica, played "cross-harp" style in C, which is what I'm doing here... though it's the first and only time I've played blues on a harmonica so high-pitched. It worked out better than I expected.

[Mazblues]

Sorry I didn't mean to insult you plus I don't know nothing about music theory myself, all I heard was that the harmonica playing was pretty good but definitely not in the right key...one can hear that it somehow doesn't fit!

Yeah I know it's not appropriate to criticise without knowing any better, I apologize for that.

[wa0000]

Thanks, Mazblues...

Which key would you prefer?

[Mazblues]

wrong key...