Vote-Day video hits the right note

By Heather Travis
April 28, 2011

Rebecca Black’s song “Friday” might be one of those annoying tunes that gets stuck in your head, but it might also keep youth humming all the way to the polls for the federal election on May 2.

King’s University College student Patrick Searle wrote a spoof of the popular YouTube hit by Black to promote the Canadian election. Titled “Vote-Day,” the catchy tune is approaching 18,000 hits on YouTube.

“It’s vote day, vote day/Gotta get out and vote today/Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the re-sults, re-sults,” Searle sings, accompanied by fellow University of Western Ontario student Brandon Sousa.

The pair is surprised by the instant uptake of their musical parody, as it has become the unofficial theme song for the election. It has been featured on several media outlets across the country and shared amongst other Canadian universities.

“I wanted to create a video that would be catchy just like the original song,” says Searle, a fourth-year religious studies and political science student. “We just wanted to make something that would spread among our community, but we never anticipated it would spread across the country.”

The underlying message encourages youth to exercise their voting rights.

“It’s not too hard to be informed,” Searle says. “As easy as it was for Rebecca Black to write that song, it’s equally as easy for you to get out and vote.”

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSRhsGl7UIo