Sharing Broadband Streams

Welcome to the page for the collaborative SHARING BROADBAND STREAMS project.

BACKGROUND: In May 2020 I wrote parody lyrics to “Islands in the Stream” the 1983 hit song performed by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. The parody was about how a couple might have to manage a limited home internet network while both working from home. I called it “Sharing Broadband Streams.”

My partner Liz and I recorded the song. But we weren’t satisfied with it. In a nutshell, I couldn’t hit most of the notes, and even though she has a great singing voice there were some lines where Liz wasn’t quite doing Dolly’s original performance justice.

We salvaged a short clip that’s not too cringe-inspiring, and incorporated it into a “medley album” compilation into a fake commercial, parodying a bunch of classic songs and those old K-Tel commercials at the same time. (The clip is about 33 seconds in to the video below)

But I still had the entire set of lyrics just sitting there.

It felt like a waste to just let them sit in a drawer.

So I’m sharing them. I’m curious to see what different people might do with that original set of lyrics. How they might just record the song, sing the lyrics, create a video, or perhaps use them as a launching pad to write and adapt into their own thing.

I’ve always loved what can come from creative collaboration, especially the unexpected things that can happen when people leverage a piece of content and make it their own. I have long felt that creative collaboration is the future of writing and storytelling in general. (After all, what is storytelling, in the classic sense, but the passing along of tales that continue to get re-interpreted by each new narrator?)

So, if you can sing, or you can write, or you can manufacture audio or video content; whatever or wherever creativity takes you, I invite you to take this content and adapt it into something new that can be shared with the world.

I only ask that, whether it’s content I’ve put out there, or whether you are incorporating someone else’s creative work, that you please offer attribution wherever you post it.

I plan on hosting or sharing as many of the links to content that I become aware of here.

Here’s a video where I explain this same stuff (for those who prefer audio/video over reading text), and also include a Karaoke style version of the parody lyrics. You can download resources over here.

Here’s a link to the different resources that you might find helpful.

If you are interested in participating and are looking for a collaborator (ie if you can do perform/creative one piece but need to partner with another creative person) fill out this form.

If you have created content and want to let me know about it, link to it, or have me add it to this page for others to see, please fill out this form.

If you’re sharing it elsewhere, please consider using the hashtag #sharingbroadbandstreams so I can find it.