Conan O'Brien Plays the Song He Tormented His Writers With For Decades

Conan O'Brien recently reunited with Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band to perform for the Get Together Foundation, and one of the songs they played also happens to be a song he used to punish his writing staff with when their work was late.

"This is a true story," O'Brien says at the top of the just-posted clip. "For many years, both at NBC and then later on [at] Turner, the band was always there at rehearsal, and I would get impatient if I was waiting for a piece of writing or a sketch to be ready to rehearse, and so what I finally did is I found a song that is so irritating to the writers that if I gave them 15, 20 minutes and the piece wasn't ready, I'd start to play this song. A little something by the Georgia Satellites — by the way, a group I really admire, and I love this song, but the way I do it is super annoying, drove the writers insane, but got me those sketches on time."

They then launched into a version of "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" with some high-pitched screaming that one can imagine doing a number on a frazzled writer's nerves.

"I've wasted so many people's lives," he tagged after the performance.

Conan airs weeknights at 11:00 PM ET on TBS.

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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.