Rose-Marie [lyric video]

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There I was, in the audience watching an episode of Pointless Celebrities being filmed when a contestant had a problem...

The question was, "Which singers recorded these hit songs?" and gave a choice of seven song titles and their release dates.

She was the last person to answer, and the only answer she knew was Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley, which was too obvious an answer and would have seen her and her partner kicked out of the round. So she had to guess...

And she guessed the singer of Rose Marie (1955) to be Chuck Berry. Well it was wrong, but it was a good guess - it was the right era and several of Chuck Berry's songs have girls' names as titles.

The correct answer would have been Slim Whitman, but it set me thinking... Wouldn't it be interesting to write a song called Rose Marie in the style of Chuck Berry?

Well that didn't quite happen. I went to bed that night and woke up next morning with my version of Rose Marie (which I have changed slightly to Rose-Marie) in my head, at least the outline and melodies.

But since the original Slim Whitman version of Rose Marie dates from 1955, I thought I would use that time period as a stylistic influence, so I decided to make the song absolutely as sentimental as I could. I think I have achieved well on that score.

One problem about songwriting though is that people often think that songs are autobiographical. Well I would like to assure anyone who wonders that my songs are all 100% fiction. I don't know anyone called Rose-Marie, not even Rose or Marie. So there. Enjoy the song.