There’s something magical about a duet that’s done well, and it’s even more incredible when the two singers are an unlikely match. Pop and jazz pianist/vocalist Norah Jones has a podcast called “Norah Jones is Playing Along” that explores this very idea. She interviews her guests and then performs duets with them, resulting in jaw-dropping renditions of popular songs.
Her February 10, 2026 episode featured Joshua Homme, a guitarist and vocalist known for his time in hard rock bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, and Eagles of Death Metal. The interview includes a “candid, offbeat conversation that covers everything from the creepiness of nursery rhymes to embracing the human nature of music.”
They perform three Queens of the Stone Age songs – “This Lullaby,” “Kalopsia,” and “Make It Wit Chu” – and a cover of “Somethin’ Stupid,” a classic duet written by C. Carson Parks and made famous by Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy in 1967.
Jones provided most of the musical accompaniment on piano, with Homme adding the guitar figure from the original intro. After realizing the chemistry in their performance, they reworked it for an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Their fleshed-out arrangement drops the guitar and adds a string quartet, which lends depth and chamber-pop elegance to an otherwise bare-bones duet.
That shift matters because it preserves the song’s intimacy while adding lift and color, allowing Jones’ smooth phrasing and Homme’s rough-edged baritone to breathe.
What makes the song so durable is its mix of sweetness and self-consciousness. The decidedly simple lyric lands so well because the melody and harmony leave room for hesitation, charm, and vulnerability. When the duo sings the line “And then I go and spoil it all / By saying somethin’ stupid like / I love you,” they’re able to shape it into something of their own rather than just something familiar.
Watch the clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live! On March 12, 2026:
The melody and harmony lines on “Somethin’ Stupid” have a unique feature that also lends to contrasting voices. One voice (typically the male voice) sings the melody that everyone can recognize. It moves in a simple step-wise motion. The second voice (typically the female voice) sings a very static harmony line that stays on a single note until the chord changes. In scientific terms, the harmony line is like the constant variable, giving us something with which to judge the change in melody.
Homme succintly explained the beauty of mixing unexpected voices together in the podcast episode. “I see why you do this. It’s actually what we’re supposed to be doing,” he told Jones. “I also love strange chemistry. I think it’s very easy for people to say, ‘Oh, that caught me off guard, it doesn’t make sense, but really it does.” Jones points out that some people would see them as an unlikely pair, to which Homme replies, “I think the stranger it gets, the more beautiful it gets.”
Get the sheet music for “Somethin’ Stupid”:
