When comedian Jon Daly started hyping up an upcoming shot-for-shot remake of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” music video titled “Cheer Me Up” on Twitter yesterday, I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not. But Daly is no stranger to creating impressive musical parodies: Take, for instance, Papa John’s Misty, Lil Xan’s Dad, or his masterful 2014 Red Hot Chili Peppers Super Bowl prank, which introduced his song “Abracadabralifornia” to a much wider audience. (If you missed it, do yourself a favor and listen to it immediately.) So it was really no surprise to see Daly follow through on his promise today, and if the resulting music video and lyrics like “You make a bread man crumb” don’t cheer you up, we don’t know what will.
Daly made the video alongside director Jake Fogelnest, with music by Cyrus Ghahremani (who also worked on Daly’s Chili Peppers and Lil Xan’s Dad songs). Even though the theme of the song is perfect for our collective coronavirus anxiety, Fogelnest told Vulture the idea for the project has been in the works since 2014, and they finally decided to produce the video last year. “It was self-financed and we are in a bit of debt now as a result of the decision to not give it to one of the big streamers like Netflix or Vioobu,” Fogelnest said. Daly added, “After all, what’s more ‘now’ than a shot-for-shot remake of the ‘Start Me Up’ video? But in light of the current situation, we thought we’d release it now, to give the world a little yum in their yuck.”
Daly told Vulture that “Cheer Me Up” is a song from a new album he’s been working on with Ghahremani. “It’s very dumb and ridiculous, but also the most personal thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “It was supposed to come out in the fall, but with the quarantine happening, who knows?”
While we wait for the rest of the album, at least “Cheer Me Up” will be there to make our many days in isolation a little bit brighter. Here’s a version of the video you can compare to the original, which unfortunately doesn’t include a guitar from Guitar Hero:
