Behind the Music: Sweet Lightning Component

It was Service Man release day and the Twitter Feed was on fire! There was lots of excitement in the air for the new video and it got labeled a ‘theme song’ courtesy of Mary Pustejovsky! She stated that one Todd Enders could use it in customer presentations as his theme music. That started a flurry of “who else needs a theme song” messages. Before we knew it we were granted permission by Shawna Wolverton to create a product theme song.

No pressure, right? I mean this isn’t the woman who just launched a revolutionary new UI design to the number one CRM platform in the world? Not the person that probably drinks tea/smoothies with Benioff and Parker on a weekly basis? I mean heck, she probably has a shirt that says “Parker is my homeboy” and it is 100% legit. Yeah, no biggy. (gulp)

We couldn’t do something mainstream. We had to think original, classy, slightly understated in all the right areas, but most of all impactful. Well within 24 hours of the call out, we had it. We had a non-cheesy tune with slightly cheesy lyrics. (Say that five times fast!)

Putting together the lyrics was the easy part, figuring out how in the world to sign our new creation well that was a challenge. The range of the original Sweet City Woman is higher than typical male vocals. It was for sure higher than what Ryan typically signs up for. Time to deploy our secret weapon! Did you catch the extra voice this time? Our very own Mark Ross stepped in on the chorus. He add just the right vocal elements to give the chorus what it was missing. (A real life saver!)

In no time we were ready for video production, but who do we cast? Who could bring a little something extra to this tune? How do we take our video game up a level? Well, let’s say you happen to see Charlie Isaacs commenting away on Twitter. Yes we know, Charlie on Twitter? Like that ever happens. 😉 As shocked as we were, we thought “now there’s an opportunity. Let the call outs begin!” I mean after all, weren’t we called out to produce the song in the first place? In a few minutes we had Charlie committed to being our first Salesforce executive in a video. That’s right, no one will be able to take away that title from Charlie. He is the original executive. (Sorry Parker!)

Not to be outdone by a good Twitter call out, Benioff’s shoes were quick to reach out and offer a cameo appearance. So of course we had to include the big man’s shoes. I mean who are we to tell Benioff no? (ummmm, yeah)

With such star power, the band decided to ditch the pjs and come out from behind the computer. It was time to be a little more involved in the process.  Ryan gathered his best props and even did an outfit change for the occasion. While Rachel took a different approach. She enlisted the power of her trusty co-workers to add some comedic relief to the song.

Then it was time to launch the video! Better yet, launch it on the same day as the band’s first public performance. Maybe you heard about Southeast Dreaming? I mean maybe there was just a little bit going on in the first part of the year for us. All and all great fun to produce this song/video. We look forward to more call outs and Salesforce participation. I mean after all, what other company in the world has their own parody band?