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Last night at the Dave Winer dinner, the conversation turned to Civilization, a classic world-building game. I then told a story about my multi-talented friend Matthew Bissett, who wrote a song (MP3, 6.4 MB, 4:33) inspired by the game. The origin of the song went something like this:

One evening, Matthew was playing Civilization. His roommate Kennedy looked over his shoulder, and remarked “ah, the night the Aztecs stormed Glasgow”. Kennedy went off to bed, and Matthew wrote the song. The next morning, he burst into Kennedy’s room (he was in bed with his girlfriend) and sang them the song.

A couple of years, Matthew recorded an album of his songs (”I Wrote This For a Girl”), and this was the bonus track. That’s Kennedy Goodkey on back-up vocals (and girlish screams) and the talented Sarah Donald on fiddle. I’m not sure who played the bodhran. Here’s how the first chorus runs, in case you want to sing along:

10,000 men strong was their army sum total
Their blood would be spilled for their god Quetzalcoatl
The Mayans could knit and the Incas could yodel
But tonight, the Aztecs stormed Glasgow

Give it a listen–it’s very funny:

• The Night the Aztecs Stormed Glasgow (MP3, 6.4 MB, 4:33)

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 20th, 2004 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Music. Tag Testing Project: No Tags. Photo by . You can skip to the end and leave a response, or trackback from your own site. If you don't see your comment within a day or so, drop me an email. Sometimes my comment spam filter gets overly zealous.