Celebrating Encanto’s Run on the Billboard Hot 100

By: Ben Adams

Disney’s smash-hit animated movie Encanto makes history with its song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, which held the number one spot of the Billboard Hot 100 for just over 5 weeks after the movie’s release on Disney Plus this past Christmas. While you might be familiar with the voices and characters behind the song, not everyone might know the Colombian-inspired track was actually composed by the one and only Lin-Manuel Miranda. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda has made waves in music and performance, creating and sometimes performing in wildly popular shows like Hamilton (2015), Moana (2016), and In The Heights (2021). To celebrate the long-lasting success of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, let’s go over our top 5 songs that you might not know Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote!

NUMBER 5

Maz Kanata’s Cantina (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

Did you know that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote music for Disney’s Star Wars trilogy? Inspired by the famous tune Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars: A New Hope, Miranda takes a new spin on the classic theme to compose a song that’s out of this world!

NUMBER 4

The Duck Song 

Lin-Manuel Miranda made his presence known to the YouTube community on March 23, 2009 when he composed and published the famous Duck Song. Amassing over 500 million views on the site, The Duck Song is Miranda’s most popular song to date! Does the lemonade man seem familiar to you? The lemonade man’s blue shirt was actually a subtle teaser of the costumes worn in Miranda’s future creation, Hamilton. 

NUMBER 3

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Written 193 years before his birth, this classic orchestral creation solidified Lin-Manuel Miranda as a musical genius at a very young age. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is often misattributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as Disney Studios® froze Miranda in a parabolic ice chamber shortly after the creation of this song in order to preserve his limited human form for the DuckTales soundtrack in 2018.

NUMBER 2

The Doorbell Sound

You may have noticed that your neighbor’s doorbells play the same musical jingle as yours. Why is that? Lin-Manuel Miranda actually composed the classic doorbell noise in 1831 following its invention by Joseph Henry. His captivating sounds have been used for doorbells ever since. No wonder doorbell noises just make everyone want to boogie! (Especially the man who stole my Amazon package off my porch yesterday) 

NUMBER 1

The United States Moon Landing

While NASA engineers had perfected their set design and costuming for the infamous faking of the 1969 moon landing, they were stumped on sound design, as everybody knows there is no sound in space. That’s when then-president Richard Nixon called in Lin-Manuel Miranda to complete the short film. Miranda lent his expert sound engineering skills to the directing team, and the rest is history!

I hope you enjoyed this top 5 list. Be on the lookout for next week’s article, how to eat chicken raw without getting sick!

Please Celebrate the Release of Red (Taylor’s Version) Responsibly

By Evan Rafferty

Grab your headphones, shut those blinds, pour yourself a glass of wine, and throw out everything that falls within six degrees of separation from Jake Gyllenhaal, because everyone’s favorite underground indie singer-songwriter superstar is coming back to town on November 12th. Taylor Alison Swift, noted rags-to-riches girlboss and esteemed offspring of a Merrill Lynch stockbroker and a marketing executive, will surely knock the music world on its ass as she plans to release her re-recording of the best album of 2012, Visions by Grimes. Thankfully, Kanye did not release an album that year, or that joke would have been even worse. Red (Taylor’s Version) was originally scheduled to release on November 19th but was moved up a week presumably to precede the release of The Gummy Bear Album (Gummibär’s Version), in stores on November 13th.

Red 2: The Reddening promises a modern remaster of Swift’s career-altering breakthrough into pop music that you wish you could have appreciated at the time but your sister would not stop playing it around the house at a very fragile time in your psychological development. The re-recording will also include numerous unreleased songs, such as “Nothing New” featuring Phoebe Bridgers (yes!), two songs with Ed Sheeran (no!), and the original ten-minute long version of “All Too Well” because I just can’t catch a goddamn break, can I Taylor? Despite acclaim and excitement for the massive thirty-song tracklist, many fans are rightfully irate at the omission of the famous stylized period at the end of “I Knew You Were Trouble.” which honestly completely ruins the song for me. 

Prior to the release of the album this Friday, many Pittsburgh city officials have posted notices alerting citizens of elevated levels of crimes of passion and gender-based tension. Police fear increased rates of arson, car keying, window-smashing, cryptocurrency theft, vote-by-mail fraud, general homicide, and hateful subtweets. The state of grace has already been disrupted by western Pennsylvania Swifties venturing out from their homes for the first time in months and painting the town red (literally and figuratively). These treacherous crimes were met with harsh warnings from high-ranking community members and police officers that, despite having already known that the Taylor stans were trouble, knew all too well that they would be unable to stop them. One local Swiftie was charged with 21 counts of vandalism after one particularly rowdy rally on Monday night. I wish they had just done it one more time because now I have to find some way to subtly get the number 22 into this article. Oh, there we go. 

Anyway, when asked if they regretted their crimes, the perpetrator was quoted as saying “I almost do,” which is maybe the coldest thing ever said in a court of law. During the trial, the accused vandalist then went on to pledge to the jury that they and the rest of the pro-Taylor vandalist gang would never ever be getting back together, after which the judge dropped all charges. The defendant promised to stay (stay (stay)) out of trouble, and that this would be the last time they would deface the holy ground of our beautiful city of Pittsburgh. One Pittsburgh police officer, Gregorio Hamfistico, famous for never using commas or saying the word ‘and,’ described the crime as “sad beautiful tragic.” He then went on to proclaim himself as “the lucky one” after many other Pittsburgh citizens had property damaged or stolen during the rally. “Everything has changed and features Ed Sheeran!” said Hamfistico. Not exactly sure what he meant by that, but it seemed thought-provoking. No matter your stance on Taylor, it is important to protect yourself, your family, and your mental health during these tumultuous times. If you find yourself alone in the starlight on Friday night, be sure to stay close to sidewalks, keep your eyes peeled for people wearing red lipstick, and avoid any seemingly demonic summonings of men to date Taylor Swift lest we let this whole thing begin again. Good luck, everyone.

Songs That the Pittiful News Writers Have Stuck In Their Heads Right Now

By: the writers of the Pittiful News 

Try and match the songs with the writers! (email us with your results at pittifulnews@gmail.com, subject line fw:fw:fw: Cousin Nathan’s Bar Mitzvah and how the left is destroying the world) 

1. The hollow ringing sound of putting my metal straw into my metal tumbler in the middle of the night when I’m trying to not wake my roommate up as I have my midnight skim milk 
2. Santa Tell Me by Ariana Grande
3. King Tut by Steve Martin
4. WAP (Medieval Remix)
5. Tequila by The Champs
6. O Canada sung by Fergie (if at first you don’t succeed…)
7. A low beating from inside the walls, as if someone were begging to be let out. 
8. Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet
9. Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet, but every line ends with sponge cake
10. Brick House by the Commodores
11. The Kill Bill sirens
12. Soulja Boy’s 2008 hit, Kiss Me Thru The Phone, but only the phone number part
13. The Weenie Man song
14. Cheeseburger in Paradise by Jimmy Buffett
15. It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere by Jimmy Buffett
16. *ominous Latin chanting*
17. Two Trucks
18. A horde of local theater kids’ rendition of Seasons of Love from RENT
19. The sirens in the background of Bonfire by Childish Gambino. No, mom, this doesn’t have any deeper meaning.
20. Atomic Dog by George Clinton (you may know this little ditty from the cinematic masterpiece that is Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde)
21. lofi hip hop radio beats to relax/study to
22. The ear-splitting “YUM” that comes from the speakers at my local Red Robin every 30 minutes
23. Trap bangers about cocaine as I walk through my majority-white upper class suburb
24. Sweet Caroline but with the Migos vocals from Carpool Karaoke
25. Contemporary Christian rock
26. The sounds of the phone number for the closest pizza place being dialed, only to realize it’s been closed for 40 years
27. Avatar’s Love, but sad
28. The concept of a zucchini being thrown at a cat
29. A math teacher being stabbed multiple times because she said that she could explain something multiple ways but continues to only explain it one way
30. Yer A Wizard Harry but he keeps saying Harry is more things
31. I’m A Barbie Girl sung by the Russian military
32. North Korean accordion music
33. Any song by Weird Al Yankovic 

1. Tyler
2. Abby
3. Morgan
4. Ella
5. Savnah (edited for space)
6. Evan
7. Sarah
8. Eric
9. Jermy Jordan
10. Tyler but with a knife in his hand
11. Ivana Tinkle
12. Jerry Sandusky’s goldfish
13. That one Denny’s waitress who gave me extra ranch without asking and I subsequently fell in love with her
14. Steve Buscemi
15. Maxamillion Von Hammerslag
16. Perry the Platypus, sans fedora
17. Sans Undertale, wearing a fedora
18. Pittiful News Writer #6
19. Lionel Richie
20. Kermit the Frog
21. Steve Buscemi (but in comic sans) (font changed for formatting purposes)
22. President Vladimir Putin
23. KGB leader Vladimir Putin
24. Ex and Future Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
25. Once and Future King Pladimir Vutin
26. Legolas Greenleaf
27. Charles Entertainment Cheese
28. Tyler, but this time he is talking about empires of the steppe
29. Tyler, but this time he’s a spider who won the popular vote for president but was then sent to jail, this of course is a possible outcome of the upcoming election, vote Alfred E. Newman for president
30. Alfred E. Newman
31. You
32. Jerry Seinfeld
33. A Yankee Candle employee