'Onorato' to Eagles' classic on YouTube

Safe to say this song never will make it onto Dan Onorato's iPod.


While the Eagles were playing the Consol Energy Center on Tuesday night, Patrick Geho was in a Washington County house recording a reworked cover of the classic hit that closed the band's show: "Desperado."

Geho gave the lyrics a provincially Pennsylvanian makeover that focused on the governor's race between Democrat Onorato and Republican Tom Corbett. Geho's thesis is that, much like a desperado, Onorato has an affinity for taking other people's hard-earned money.

                                                                                              
The opening verse:

"Onorato,

Why don't you come to your senses?


You've been out raisin' taxes for so long now


Dan, you're the tax man


I know you've got your reasons


(But) these taxes that are pleasin' you have hurt us somehow."



It's unlikely that "Onorato" will do for Geho's musical career what "Desperado" did for the Eagles back in the '70s. But Geho, 40, past president of the Beaver County Chamber of Commerce and one-time aide to former Republican U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, doesn't care.

"I'm just happy people seem to be getting a kick out of this," he said.

Geho was sitting around doing little on Sunday night when his muse arrived unannounced. Impolite, I know, but Geho wasn't irked by the impromptu visit.

"You know how you hear Billy Joel say he wrote a song in five minutes?" he said. "It was like that with me. The words just kind of flowed out."

The next day, he showed the lyrics to his brother, Jim Geho, who likes to play music when he isn't nabbing criminals in his day job as police chief in Hanover.

The chief had an idea. He made a few calls, and the next night the brothers visited the home of Hug McKinney, a Washington-area musician who fronts a band that bears his name.

"Hug borrowed a track recorder, and with his kids and his dog around, we recorded the song live right there in his living room," Patrick Geho said.
                                                                                          

"Onorato,


Oh, you ain't gettin' my vote,


Your taxes and spending, they're driving me from home


Oh, the drink tax, well that's just some people paying


Your taxes are costing us our incomes and homes."


After the recording session, the Geho brothers labored long into the night producing the accompanying music video. Because if you're going to do something, you might as well do it obsessively.

"I thought the best way to get it out there was to put it on YouTube," Patrick Geho said. "So as soon as it was finished Wednesday morning, that's what we did."

If you're interested, the video can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v•v2xrK5e-XKQ. There you'll find Patrick Geho singing:

"Onorato,


Oh is that how you say it?


Can you hold up your flash card to remind me again?


I am for Tom Corbett, I know he's for no taxes


Tom signed the no-tax pledge that you did not sign."


Onorato undoubtedly hates it, but it's safe to say only one song probably is loaded onto Corbett's iPod at the moment -- and it's not the latest Lady Gaga offering.