Gary Kapelus is not a trained lyricist, but rather a retired speech-language pathologist and hospital administrator. But that hasn’t stopped him from indulging in a pandemic passion project: writing COVID-themed parody songs since spring 2020.

He isn’t a singer, so his music videos are simply popular musical tracks, often karaoke-style, with lyrics written atop a slideshow-style video. Sometimes he finds singers to record, like for “Mask Maker, Mask Maker” or “Breathing on a Jet Plane”. But his most popular tracks are often politically barbed, even without vocals: “This Plan’s Unsound,” riffing on “Alberta Bound”, digs into Premier Jason Kenney’s government for its numerous failures during the pandemic.

Kapelus joins today to discuss his inspirations, goals and plans for the future, as well as his thoughts as Canada enters a new year—and a new wave of COVID cases.

What we talked about:

• Hear Kapelus’s songs on his YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/Garyoct13, or follow him on Twitter @garykapelus
• Listen to The CJN Daily episode, “A rocket from Gaza hit his neighbours’ house. He ran inside to save them”, at thecjn.ca
• Learn more about Robert Gasner’s “Certificate of Appreciation” ceremony at kan-ashkelon.co.il

Credits

The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Victoria Redden is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network; find more great Jewish podcasts at thecjn.ca.