St. Thomas students’ YouTube video parodies have been attracting lots of attention recently. Senior Amanda Schultz and two of her friends crafted a Minnesotan response to Katy Perry’s hit single, “California Gurls,” and their parody currently has more than 400,000 views and has been featured on many local news outlets and radio stations.

The “Minnesota Gurls” video highlights all the things that make Minnesota, and especially Minnesota girls, “unforgettable,” including their love of lutefisk and their flannel shirts, waterproof boots and wind-chafed skin.

“We had no idea it would get this big,” Schultz said. “We would’ve worked on it a little more if we’d known it would be so popular, but we just kind of whipped it together for fun.”

Schultz and her friends, siblings Luke and Maggie Thompson who attend St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, respectively, filmed the parody in locations around Minnesota. Schultz and Maggie Thompson wrote and sang the chorus and bridge, and Luke Thompson, who has also created a number of his own parodies, wrote and sang the rap section Snoop Dogg sings in the original video. The lyrics were a collaborative effort and they tried to come up with funny lyrics that mirrored the sound of the original lyrics, Schultz said.

One line in the parody claims “you can travel the world, but nothing comes close to a Grain Belt toast,” replacing the original, “nothing comes close to the Golden Coast.” And instead of the “Daisy Dukes and bikinis on top” in the original song, Minnesota girls wear “waterproof boots and flannel on top.”

“We also wanted to do something about how starry Minnesota is compared to California where you can’t see any of the stars,” Schultz said. “So Maggie came up with the lyrics, ‘We have stars in the sky instead of only on the sidewalks.”

“We included a couple of jabs at California and lots of jokes about Minnesota,” Schultz added. “It’s all meant to be fun.”

The comments have been mainly positive and people have said the song makes them proud to be Minnesotan, Schultz said, but the tone of the comments changed as the song’s popularity spread outside the state.

“You knew exactly when it exited Minnesota and got into the other states, because all of a sudden the comments weren’t so Minnesota nice,” Schultz said.

There is one thing she’d change if she could remake the video, Schultz said.

“In part of it, I’m holding my fishing pole upside down. That was horrifying when I realized that. My parents pointed it out to me, but it was too late to change it. About fifty people have commented, ‘The blond girl is holding her fishing pole wrong!’”

Schultz and Luke and Maggie Thompson recorded a version of “Minnesota Gurls” in radio station 96.3 Now’s studio June 23 that will be played on-air. Schultz said there is also a possibility they will perform their song for 96.3 at the Minnesota State Fair. They haven’t made any money from the parody, but Schultz said they are simply excited about how popular it is.

“What makes music interesting is you can have these musical ‘battles’ between a pop star and some regular kids,” Schultz said. “It’s a fun experience.”

‘GOO! Productions’ creates “Lover, Lover” parody

A group of five sophomores have added their own spin to country singer Jerrod Neimann’s recent hit, “Lover, Lover.” Their version, titled “Lover Lover, You don’t treat GOO! no good no more.” is set entirely in Ireland Hall and features the five men lip-synching to the original lyrics while wearing white t-shirts, jeans and sunglasses.

The video is the second video made by “GOO! Productions,” as the group calls itself. The first was a lip-synching parody of DJ Earworm’s “United State of Pop 2009” that got a few thousand hits, but that’s nothing compared to the more than 58,000 views their “Lover, Lover” parody has gotten.

“We were bored one night the week before finals so we decided to make another video,” group member Mike Kaliszewski said. “Somebody somewhere in the radio industry found it, and then Amy James from K102 started talking about it and then a bunch of other radio stations, like the Wolf in New Hampshire, started talking about it and it took off.”

They each take turns lip-synching to the lyrics while striking funny poses and they use the stairways, hallways, doorways and even the bathrooms in Ireland Hall as the set for the video. And instead of being annoyed or insulted by the parody, original artist Jerrod Niemann is a fan.

“Jerrod’s mom stumbled across our video, and instead of suing us for copyright infringement or anything like that – what’s he going to make from college students anyway? – we actually got to go to an interview with him,” Kaliszewski said. “He thinks it’s a funny video.”

“He even found us on Facebook and said we need to come down to Des Moines when he’s playing at a festival to hang out with him,” Kaliszewski said. “Hopefully we can become good friends with him.”

Katie Broadwell can be reached at klbroadwell@stthomas.edu.