This article is more than 1 year old

Reg corporate anthem competition results in full

We who are about to rock salute you

Wtf?

When we recently invited Reg readers of a musical bent to pen a Vulture Central corporate anthem, little did we suspect the lyrical talent that lies latent beneath the surface of IT.

The challenge was simple: encapsulate in song the wonder that is The Register; set it to a well-known tune; and lay off Microsoft.

Sadly, many failed to reach even the first chorus before bursting forth into an anti-Gates rap stylee. Shame on the lot of you.

Nevertheless, many readers rose admirably to the challenge. So much so that we giving the following runners-up an exclusive Reg pin:

The support acts

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, glam-rock supremos Queen were a source of inspiration to many, Darren Davis included:

Tune: We are the Champions

We've brought you news,
byte after byte,
we've hammered Bill Gates,
and all the dotcom websites,
And Caption Cyborg,
To name but a few,
We've coined the term titsup.com now in everyday use,
And we'll type on and on and on and on,

We are the Register, our friends,
and we'll keep on typing till the end,
We are the Register,
We are the Register,
No time for print media,
Cos we are the Register, on the web.

We've taken our flak,
over the screen saver,
we brought you the news, our views and every type of sarcastism ,
you've thanked us all,
but Reg hacks down the local, getting merry and stewed,
Its a challenge to write the next article after the pub and not get sued
(and we'll type on and on and on and on)

We are the Register, our friends,
and we'll keep on typing till the end,
We are the Register,
We are the Register,
No time for print media,
Cos we are the Register, on the web...

Nice. And what about some more Queen, courtesy of Rez?:

Tune: Bohemian Rhapsody

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a dot com,
No escape from reality.

Open your eyes,
Look up to the skies and see,
Bill's just a poor boy, he needs your sympathy.
Because he's easy come, easy go
He sells it high, buys it low
Everyone loves Windows
Everyone loves Windows you see, you see.

Hey man, just cloned a disk
Shall I run it, think I will
Ran the bugger, it phoned Bill
Hey man, life had just begun
But now the Beast
of Redmond's on it's way
Hey man ooo
Ain't it mean I hear you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
CD ROMs, CD ROMs
As if software really matters

Too late, your time has come
Sent emails down the line
Worm's attached so all is fine
Goodbye all you suckers
I've got you now
Gotta open your backdoors
And take control

Hey man ooo (Nothing sucks like Windows)
Any port will do
I sometimes think I'll never be bored at all.

I see the Bastard Operator with the man.
PFY! PFY!
Will you tell me what's happ'ning
Microsoft installing
Linux wails appalling-ly!

E-Potato,(E-Potato)
E-Potato, (E-Potato)
E-Potato scriptico
Magnifico!
He's just a script kid
Virus kit, just hit send
He's just a script kid
Never had a girlfriend
Get him a life
By the time he's twenty three

AMD, here they come, welcome to the show
Chipzilla!
AMD will not go
(Make them go!)
Chipzilla!
AMD will not go
(Make them go!)
Chipzilla!
AMD will not go
(Make them go!)
AMD will not go
(Make them go!)
AMD will not go
(Make them go!)
No, no, no, no, no, no, no

BBC hah!
CNN hah!
ITV hah! let me go
The Register has a Vulture put aside for me,
for me,
for me

So you think you can fool me and spread all your lies
So you think you can hate me and then make me cry
Yeah baby-Can't do that to me baby
Just gotta get Reg, just gotta get Register here
Anything that matters,
Anyone can see,
Anything that matters,the Vulture always brings home to me,
(Anything but Windows...)

You see the difference between a pin and a t-shirt? That's right, too much MS in there. Frank Reid's Queenalike singalong, on the other hand, is a bit BOFH-heavy:

Tune: We will rock you

Sorry you're a geek gonna make you squeek
Playin' wall street, titsup dot com some day
You got pizza on yo' face
You hate Bill Gates
Its no wonder no women will give you no dates
Singin'

'We will we will BOFH you
We will we will BOFH you'

Router is down, Queen Mums still around
Magee can't be found, what's the page two girl say?

Overclocked your interface
PFY's wearing lace
Vulture banner hangin' all over the place

'We will we will BOFH you'
Singin'
'We will we will BOFH you'

Buddy you're an anorak, home port for a spam attack
Yah think your tariff's gonna get ya a few quid some way
Cyborg's a nutcase
A big disgrace
The Beast of Redmond just gobbled up your whole damn place

'We will we will BOFH you'
Singin'
'We will we will assimilate you'
Ooops
'We will we will Microsoft you'
'We will we will Microsoft you'

So, have a go at the BOFHS and then throw in a bit more MS bashing at the end. Oh dear, oh dear... The Brit flavour continues with Richard Gelderblom, who's a wise man in favouring amusing Ska outfit Madness:

Tune: Baggy Trousers

Naughty boys in nasty form
those journos bashing every form
Having fun and playing fools
smashing up all hardware tools

All the editors in the pub
Passing out and passing up
trying not to think of when
the next hoax comes around again

--chorus--
Oh what fun we'll make
when we pull IT over the rake
All we ever do
is irate the business, and also you
Oh what fun we make
But we do it for your own sake
We're the Register you see
we bite the hand that feeds IT
--

The editors had enough today
all the writers gone away
Gone to hack a new story
That will be the first we see

Sits alone and types along
Humming an unknown song
The other rags will tell tall tales
But he'll show them where their logic fails

--
chorus
--

Lots of virii and a worm
The Reg will find out without scorn
Another titsup, world+dog
They'll show the way thru this HW fog

Vulture central on my shirt
I'm proud of 'El Reg', it won't hurt
I'll stir up another controversy
the BOFH will work for me !

--
chorus
--

Vulture Central, Vulture Central, Vulture Central (ad infinitum)

Yes indeed - meaty musical goodness all the way. But what, you ask, about the US contingent? Well, how about some Britney? Take it away Alexander Moskalyuk:

Tune: Whoops! I did it again

ICANN approves new domains,
Chipzilla is down
A server is hacked.
(oh, baby)
Another dotcom is crushed
But it doesn't mean
It's all serious.
'Cause we still read the Vulture,
It's the part of thing called IT.
(Oh, baby, baby-)

It's TheRegister dot
See-oh dot yu-key, that's biting the hand.
(Oh baby, baby,)
Just in case you forgot
The Reg rules the world
And is magnificent.

Another antitrust case,
Stock market is up,
Wishing that 2000 prices are back.
A price drops on PDA's,
And a telecom giant talks on 3G delays.
But we still read the Vulture,
It's the part of thing called IT.
(Baby, oh-)

It's TheRegister dot
See-oh dot yu-key, that's biting the hand.
(Oh baby, baby,)
Just in case you forgot
The Reg rules the world
And is magnificent.

Yes it is, Alexander, yes it is. Thankyou. Now, Andy Stout reckons that a bit more of an Isaac Hayes edge is what the doctor ordered. Andy says that his effort 'sounds good in a drunken slur.' And he's got the surname to back it up...

Tune: Theme from Shaft

Which is the website
That's a sex machine to all other hacks?
(El Reg!)
You're damn right.

Which is the website
That will fearlessly pursue Captain Cyborg?
(El Reg!)
Can ya dig it?

Which is the website that won't cop out
When there's free lager all about?
(El Reg)
Right on.

You see this El Reg is a bad mother
(Shut your BOFH)
But I'm talkin' about El Reg
(Then we can dig it)
I.T. is a complicated subject
But no one understands it like the Reg crew
(El Reg)

Ok, now it's time to give away some shirts. Cue thunderflashes. Cue dry ice. Cue laser show. Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you...

The main event

Let's kick off tonight's show with a little MOR rock. Did you really think that we'd get to the end of this extravanganza without a showing from the Eagles? No chance. Music lovers please direct your complaints to the author, Nick Verstehen:

Tune: Hotel California

On a dim dreary Monday,
with sysadmin blues
fired up the workstation
had to get me some news.
Slashdot had the usual rot
and Kuro5hin was a mess
Industry Standard had gone tits-up:
demise of the online press.
The support line was ringing,
I heard the Control-G bell
And I was thinking to myself
I should be a Bastard Sys-Op from Hell.
Then I checked on my email
And I found a new link
From the 'leet IRC haX0r dude
I almost saw him wink:

Welcome to ol' Vulture Central,
A sarcastic place
(a sarcastic place)
At a frantic pace
Plenty of news at the ol' Vulture Central
Any time of year,
(any time of year)
point your browser here.

The site is definitely twisted,
it's got that dry British wit
It's got rumors of the industry
all the news that's fit
How they bash on the Windows
Sweet mocking jest
Some mock the security
Some mock all the rest
So I called up the Writers
Please give me my WAP
They said
We haven't had that spirit here since we tested that crap
And still DoCoMo is calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear it say:

Welcome to ol' Vulture Central
An IT resource
(an IT resource)
That shows no remorse
They're writin' it up at the ol' Vulture Central
new stuff every day
(new stuff every day)
at dot co U K

Damage at the Co-Lo,
Phone call for Lettice
Cisco said
What we're suff'ring here
Is a bad device
And at Level-3 Hosting
They gather 'round the rack,
With their notebooks and their floppy drives
They finally got it back
Last thing I remember
I was fearing the site down
I had to get my rumor fix
in IT info drown
Relax said McCarthy
don't be so naive
You can check news any time at all
This is the web we weave.

(gnarly guitar solo, &c., fading to the sounds of Don
Henley's greasy squad of lawyers crushing me with deep
stacks of Cease and Desists)

Nicely done. That had the entire Reg staff with their lighters in the air, all teary-eyed about Woodstock. Blimey. No sooner had they recovered than the Steve Miller Band took the stage, fronted by Tim Scrimshaw:

Tune: Fly like an Eagle

Virus keeps on slipping, into my server
Virus keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into my server...

I wanna fly like a vulture to the sea,
Fly like a vulture, let the kickbacks carry me,
I wanna fly (oh, yeah...)

I wanna mock the execs in their comfy leather seats,
Tease the PRs - now isn't that so sweet,
I wanna tell the techies - to get out on the street,
Oh, oh... there's a network solution...

I wanna fly like a vulture to the sea,
Fly like a vulture, let the kickbacks carry me,
I wanna fly (oh, yeah...)

Virus keeps on slipping, into my server
Virus keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into my server...
(repeat ad infinitum)

Time to kick up the pace a bit. Heads in the sub-bass bins everybody for Bart A. Drescher and Black Sabbath:

Tune: War Pigs

Time to read the mighty "Vultuuuuuure",
Get my dose of online cultuuure
Read about the friggin' lameeeers
And the angry online flamers

Register stories keep churnin'
As the dot coms all keep burnin'
Layoffs here and layoffs theeeere
New technology everywheeeeere

OOOOH LORD YEH

Guitar: DUH DUH WA WA WAAAAA WAAAAA DUH DUH...etc.

Hand of Bill has struck the hour
No more Big Blue has the power
Windows user they all suffer
As they overflow their buffers

On the phone the boss is calling
On their knees the users crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Bastard Operator laughing spreads his wings

Guitar with screaming users in background

During the judging process, the Vulture Central Competitions Department was treated to a quite amazing rendition of the above by news editor Rob 'The Pond' Blincoe. Luckily, we don't keep live bats in the office, but rest assured, Rob's Ozzie impersonation was authentic in every other detail. Incredible.

More Brit pop insanity comes from Keith Lawrence, Devin Giddings and Blur:

Tune: Song 2

Integriti-hy.
And Honesti-hy.
Show us the money.
Show us the mon-ey.

Woo-hoo!
When we're writing our stories
Woo-hoo!
Vulture's basking in glories
Woo-hoo!
Don't hype much though it's easy
Drink quite a lot so we're never sure what we're writing
How exciting!

Probiti-hy
Veraciti-hy.
Show us the money.
Show us the mon-ey.

I'm not just an I.T. hack.
Woo-hoo!
My news reports don't hold-back.
Woo-hoo!
Never slip 'cause we work hard.
All of the time at my keyboard tapping out copy.
Never sloppy.

Like it. Now here's a blast from the past. Anyone remember Culture Club? Wayne does:

Tune: Karma Chameleon

PR rubbish on the desk every day
If we listened to those lies would you say
We're a mag without conviction
We're a mag who doesn't do
Background checks on PR fiction
We've got a clue
We've got a clue

Chorus
------
PR PR PR PR PR PR person
We've got a clue
We've got a clue
Writing would be easy if you only cut out those lies
Those porky pies
Those porky pies

2
-
Now we read your wicked words every day
And you used to be so sweet I heard you say
But the truth is an addiction
If we err, please prove us wrong
But your chutzpah lasts forever
You try it on
You try it on

Chorus

Mid 8
-----
Every day is like survival
You swear blind upon the bible
That your product beats your rival
But it's crap. That's truth, not libel...

Great chorus - spread the word. Coming now to the last five winners, we have yet more Queen. It is, however, a noteworthy effort from 'left hand post box':

Tune: Bohemian Rhapsody

Is this the real news,
Is this PR Fantasy
Caught in an NDA
No escape, let the truth be free!

Open your eyes
Look up past their lies and see
I'm a Reg journo, I need no sympathy
Because my sources talk, rumours flow
Hyped right up, brought down low
Anyway the wind blows
The gossip just come back to me, To me
Reader, just pumped a man.
Put my tape against his head,
Went and recorded what he said.
Reader, the spin had just begun
But now I've gone
And spilled the beans again.
Reader, oooh
I meant to make you laugh
Refresh your page, it'll update before tomorrow
Press F5, Press F5
As if it's what your life depends on.

Too late, the router's down
No more IP down its spine
Packets dropping all the time.
Goodbye page impressions
It'll have to go
Gotta leave the dial-up line behind
And go T3
Reader oooh (any way the Nasdaq goes)
If they try to lie
I'll make them wish
they'd never been born at all.

I write a story covered over in red
in the Reg, it's the Reg,
and we're going public right now.
Lawsuits and lawyers
Don't much frighten me
Dear Reg reader, Dear Reg reader,
Dear Reg reader click our ads.
But I'm just a poor hack,
And nobody pays me
He's just a poor hack from a poor publisher
Spare his expenses
From the Sub-Editor

Easy come, easy go, will you sponsor us?
Gold Service?
No we will not sponsor you!
(Sponsor you)
Platinum Service? No we will not sponsor you!
Diamond Service No we will not sponsor you!
Diamond Plus? No we will not sponsor you!
Will not pay you off, me off
Will not bail you out, me out
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
Dear Reg reader, Dear Reg reader, Dear Reg reader check this out
The judges have a Pulitzer put aside for me
for me, for me

So you think you can copy my copy and rip off my pics
So you think you can misquote my sources and steal all my clicks
Oh knock-offs, can't do this to me knock-offs
Just gotta write it out, Just out where everyone can see
Nothing really matters,
Anyone can see,
The Vulture keeps on soaring,
The Vulture keeps on soaring, and is free
Anyway the Nasdaq goes.

Excellent. Epic, anthemic and filled with cheap jibes at our expense. Well done. Onward now with a couple of hymns, ever an appropriate framework for corporate anthemness. Richard Platel reckons he needs a t-shirt 'to clothe my poor old Canadian back.' What's up, seal fur not good enough for ya?

Tune: Battle Hymn of the Republic

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Reg's writing horde
they are cranking out the stories with the japes of wrath they've stored
they hath loosed their fitful laughter, 'tis mightier than the sword!
The Reg is marching on

<Chorus>
hacks and cellphones, Hallelujah!
hard and soft ware, Hallelujah!
stocks and telcos, Hallelujah!
The Reg is marching on

I have seen them send the C-E-Os crying home to mom
With PR bunnies screaming "someone set us up the bomb"!
IT bubbles they will pop with style, grace and aplomb,
The Reg is marching on.

Crypto boffins hide our secrets, while Hotmail lets them go
Kevin Warwick is a moron but still gets on radio shows
It's The Reg that will save us, set our monitors aglow!
The Reg is marching on

We will read them while we're working for to tickle our funny bones
we would read them at the local if we had some good WAP phones
we will read them 'till we're fired then we'll read them from our homes
The Reg is marching on

Rousing stuff indeed. Want more heart-swelling and loin-girding? Then unfurl the flag with Dean Ransevycz:

Tune: Jerusalem

And did those feet in network time
Walk upon England's display screen?
And was the Holy Prompt of Tux
On England's net computers seen?
And did the Internet sublime
Shine forth from out our mounting bills?
And was The Register published here,
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my World Wide Web of old,
Unfettered ere WIPO did conspire.
Bring me my beer: O flacks unfold!
Bring me my Phrasings of Satire.
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall the Truth sleep in my hand,
'Til we have read The Register
From England's green and pleasant land.

It brings a tear to your eye, it really does. For full-on blubbing, let's call upon Eric Barton:

Tune: God Save the Queen (The national anthem, not the Sex Pistols, natch.)

God save The Register
Long live The Register
God save save our Reg.
Always the Truth to tell
Even when it might smell
She needs no page 3 girl
God save our Reg.

O Lord our Reg. arise
Give us a nice surprise
Dig us the dirt
Expose cartels and fraud
Lampoon the lying sod
Spare not thy Mighty Rod
Their just dessert.

Thy choicest gifts in store
We'd like to buy some more
T-shirts and mugs
May your site be secure
D-D-O-S endure
S'kiddies repulse for sure
And patch all bugs.

Not in this land alone
May your business be grown
And never ebb
May your organ harangue
All who'd talk U.S. slang
Worldwide your drum to bang
All o'er the Web.

From every latent foe
From those with too much dough
God save our Reg.
Our most enduring friend
From those who bad intend
And the Great Stans, defend
God save our Reg.

Lord grant the Vultures Head
Logo will never shed
Its glorious pledge
Always to clue us in
With no slant bias or spin
Doing all wankers in
God save our Reg.

Excuse us a minute while we all sit back down. Right - our winner. After hours of deliberation and hammering at the Bontempi organ, we are pleased to announce our competition winner - Peter Dykes. Peter wins not only a t-shirt, but also a life-size Elvis to while away the lonely hours waiting for the muse to speak:

Tune: The Red Flag

Don't be taken in by new IT
Without you've seen the full SP
There's only one place on the net
Where you can read the truth, you bet.

The URL, you know the one
Has all the news and lots of fun
The Register, The Register
Will tell you just what's going on.

If your OS is a bag of nails
And you're hacked off each time it fails
To find out why this thing should be
Just read The Reg and you will see

Monopolies are one big con
We will not rest till they are gone
The corporates and all their lies
Cannot escape the Vulture's eyes

The fingers lie in bloody pools
Of those who would the Vulture fool
Their hands are well and truly bit
And they feel like a sack of shit

If they had told the truth complete
They'd have the kit to beat their meat
But as it they can't even stick
Two fingers up at The Register

So all of you who live in fear
Of bastards trying to bend your ear
Dont listen to a word they say
But read The Register every day

Buy the shirt and you'll look slick
Have a vulture tatooed on your dick
Go down the pub and have a beer
We'll keep the Reg flag flying here

Marvellous. Mr Dykes, we salute you. And here's what our Burt Baccarachs have won:

Pick one of these you lucky, lucky people

Yes, our lucky winners can have one of any of these above designs - in white, grey, black or blue - which are soon to be available in our Reg shop. Lovely.

Congratulations to our winners and, as ever, thanks to all those who entered. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like