Photo via Flickr under terms of Creative Commons License: thor is a laptop

Recently there have been several music parodies posted by members of the MDM, Data Quality, and Data Governance community. These parodies have used songs from Rush, Styx, and George Thorogood as their muse. Jim Harris and I discussed the idea of holding a contest where members of the community could submit their own parody.

What's in it for you?

Bragging rights! (That is until the next challenge...) Sure there is always the chance your YouTube video goes viral. (You were going to submit a YouTube video, right?)

Rules?

We don't need no stinkin' rules... Just a few suggested guidelines is all we have to offer:

• Your song can be original or may parody an existing song.
• Your song has to be related to MDM, Data Governance, or Data Quality.
• You may submit your song via a comment to this post or as a post on your own blog. If you post it on your own blog you must link back to this post or risk not being included in the vote.
• Video or audio submissions are permitted but not required.

Celebrity Panel of Judges?

Due to prior engagements and personality conflicts we were unable to arrange for Simon Cowell, Ellen Degeneres, or Howard Stern to participate in the judging of the best song. So instead we are going to let you, the community, be the judge of contest. In a subsequent post we will provide a list to all of the submissions and a poll to allow you to vote.

Submissions

I wanted to first thank everyone who took the time to the participate. Below is a list the submissions that can be voted on in the poll found below.

• Ode to a Failed Data Warehouse - Submitted by Steve Sarsfield (blog/twitter)
• Tempted... (to leave it uncovered) - Submitted by William Sharp (blog/twitter)
• The Grand (Data) Illusion - Submitted by Berry Rogers (blog/twitter)
• Data Quality is such a Rush - Submitted by Jim Harris (blog/twitter)
• MDM to the Bone - Submitted by Rob Paller (twitter)

Poll

As I was reading Jim Harris excellent post, Data Quality is a Rush over at the Data Flux Community of Experts I started thinking about theme songs for data related technologies such as data quality, master data management, data governance or data warehousing. If you uttered the name of one of those technologies in the company of a non-data geek their eyes would quickly glaze over. But set to the tune of a head bobbing, foot tapping song?

The following music parody is set to the tune of George Thorogood and the Destroyers' Bad to the Bone (via Last.fm).

MDM to the Bone

Bad to the Bone

On the day I was born
The analysts all gathered 'round
And they gazed in wide wonder
At the joy they had found
The lead analyst spoke
Said "leave this one alone".
She could tell right away
That I was MDM to the bone.

MDM to the bone
MDM to the bone
M-M-M-M-MDM
M-M-M-M-MDM
M-M-M-M-MDM
MDM to the bone

I mastered countless rows
Before I met you
I'll master countless more data
Before I am through
I'll master your messy data
Yours and yours alone
I'm here to tell ya honey
That I'm MDM to the bone
MDM to the bone
M-M-M-M-MDM
M-M-M-M-MDM
MDM to the bone

I make data analysts beg
I'll make the data warehouse steal
I'll make board members blush
And make the auditors squeal
I wanna integrate your data
Yours and yours alone
I'm here to tell ya honey
That I'm MDM to the bone
MDM to the bone
M-M-M-M-MDM
M-M-M-M-MDM
MDM to the bone

And when I master your data
SMEs and Stewards step aside
Every system I beta
They all stay satisfied
Well Ya see I make my own
I'm here to tell ya honey
That I'm MDM to the bone
MDM to the bone
M-M-M-M-MDM
M-M-M-M-MDM
MDM to the bone

What song would you parody to get your fellow geeks tapping their feet and bobbing their heads?