Early Version Of “Free Fallin'” Surprisingly Horse-Focused
On The Tonight Show last night, Jimmy Fallon notched another classic-rock star impression on his seemingly endless list of them. During a sketch about the original version of Tom Petty’s rock classic “Free Fallin,'” Fallon, strapped with a double-neck guitar, played co-writer and ELO frontman Jeff Lynne. The role of Petty, meanwhile, went to movie-star chameleon and fellow toothy blonde guy Kevin Bacon, a guest on last night’s show. The central joke of the song was that it never gets beyond the point that the girl in the song loves horses, and Petty never quite gets to the chorus. It’s a testament to the weird comic power of endless, drawn-out repetition. Check it out below.
Weirdly, James Corden also did a bit built around, essentially, the exact same joke on his Late Late Show last night. Together with guests Josh Groban and Heidi Klum, Corden reimagined a series of songs, just repeating their first lines over and over again:
Both of them share that same joke with this Human League parody, which went viral a while ago:
All of these people are really ripping off a thing I did, singing Soundgarden’s “Outshined” as “I just looked in the mirror” over and over again, in high school. I don’t know how they all found out about it, but I demand recompense.
