Culture

Jordan Raskopoulos Plans To Sing The World’s Longest Performance Of ‘The Song That Doesn’t End’

And she's doing it to raise money for queer youth on Wear It Purple Day.

by Patrick Lenton  27 August 2020
Jordan Raskopoulos 'Song That Doesn't End' Wear It Purple Day

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

As part of Wear It Purple Day on Friday, comedian, musician, and love of my life Jordan Raskopoulos is taking to a Twitch live stream to break the world record for singing ‘The Song That Doesn’t End’. All the proceeds will be going to Twenty10, to help support queer youth.

“Yes, that annoying some from Lamb Chop’s Play-Along? I’m going to sing it the most,” she says, grimacing.

If you’re not familiar, Lamb Chop’s Play-Along is a semi-demonic show for children from the past, which features a talking sheep named after a cut of its own delicious meat. One of the more enduring legacies from the show is the repeating, never-ending song ‘The Song That Doesn’t End’, which does basically what it says on the tin.

It might be the ultimate earworm.

Obviously it’s for a great cause, but I was extremely curious as to why Jordan chose the world’s most cursed piece of music — so I asked her, which is what journalism is, I think.

“There is a game on Twitch called Twitch Sings, which is basically a karaoke program where you can sing streaming songs. And ‘The Song That Doesn’t End’ is one of the songs on that program,” Jordan told me.

“And if you load it up, there’s an Easter Egg in it…  where it doesn’t end. You actually have to quit the program to finish the song. And so the first time I put it on I think somebody  in my channel was like, ‘Hey, you’re doing something that doesn’t end’. And I probably sang it for like 10 minutes probably before I’m like, ‘Oh this doesn’t end, does it? It just goes forever. Wouldn’t it be funny if I did this on stream and just didn’t stop?’ And see how long I could go. I was like, ‘Well, Wear it Purple Day is coming up. I want to raise some money for Twenty10, and I love to do these big dumb things.'”

Which, sure — admirable. But the question on everyone’s lips is of course how long she has to perform to break the world record?

“The longest recording I could find was someone on YouTube who did it for a bit over two hours,” Jordan tells me. She also tells me that people think two and a half hours of singing Lambchop is “nothing”.

“I’m like, I don’t think it is. I think singing ‘The Song That Doesn’t End’ for over two and a half hours is going to be hell. And now there’s an expectation that not only do I need to beat that, but I need to smash it. So, look, we’re going to go for it. We’re going to give it a crack.”

Wear it Purple Day is an annual LGBTIQA+ awareness day for for young people in Australia, which often revolves around people wearing purple in solidarity.

All donations, subs, and bits from Jordan’s deranged Twitch performance will go to Twenty10, to help them continue their work providing housing, mental health counselling, social support, and other services for LGBTQIA+ young people.

Related
We Asked Different Generations Of LGBTIQ Aussies To Tell Us Their Stories

“I think I’m very passionate about LGBTQIA+ causes. Particularly this cause,” Jordan explains to me, about the importance of Wear It Purple Day.

“I think it’s a very hard time to be a young queer person. I mean it’s a hard time to be a queer person now, generally. I think there are a lot of dickheads saying some pretty awful things about queer kids, about trans kids, about families of trans kids. A certain redheaded fuckwit from Queensland in particular most recently, but many of them.

So, I think trans kids in particular, and LGBT kids generally, are really being targeted over the last couple of years. It feels like since marriage equality kind of stopped being on the debate table, trans people and queer kids suddenly became the new target of twits.”

“So I think raising money, raising awareness… But also just demonstrating to young people that there are… I don’t want to call myself an elder, because it makes me feel old, but people in the community who are thinking about them, who have their backs, and that they’re not alone. I mean, I think any queer person who thinks about their adolescence probably thinks about loneliness in some way. Not being able to connect with people of similar experiences, all that. So, all of those reasons are reasons why I’m an ambassador for Twenty10. Why I’m passionate about LGBTQ causes.”

And why she’s going to sing ‘The Song That Doesn’t End’ for more than two and a half hours.

“So tune in, as I do a really stupid thing, for a really good reason.”

The stream will happen on Friday 28th August, at 3pm (AEST) on Jordan’s Twitch channel: twitch.tv/jordanrasko.