A Parody of a Parody

Last Saturday, I was motoring with Miss Sallie Parker and friend on U.S. 6. Somewhere in southeastern Massachusetts, my frustration with the third stanza of If I Only Had a Brain reached its limit, and I knew there was nothing for it but to move on to the next item and forget it. Perhaps someday . . .

I don't know who did so first, but someone mentioned, or hummed, or otherwise caused me to think of Harry Warren's You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby (don't forget David Jenkins's yummy web site). I pounced on it, saying that it would make a perfect vehicle for a parody. Without missing a beat, Miss Sallie Parker sang, "You ought to have a Valvoline Lube-Job" (I believe we had just passed a garage to starboard; this may have suggested the idea). I was as sick as mud. Her improvisation was so grotesquely mundane, so ludicrously droll and so vaguely obscene, that it would be impossible for me to top it; and "borrowing" it was out of the question. I do have ethics, you know. I told her that she had to finish it, and then (figuratively speaking) went off and sulked, but not before laughing my head off.

Last night, I recounted this unfortunate occurrence to a convenient barmaid, and explained my problem: can't top, can't steal. Then why not, she suggested, try to parody her parody? A subject immediately presented itself, and the lyric below is the upshot, or outcome.

Mind, the clumsiness of the opening verse is the result of having hastily patched together any old thing to serve as a makeshift lead-in.

Did your mother not advise
You not to be obsessed with size—
That sexy doesn't need a double D?
Did your dad forget to say
There's nothing wrong with modest A—
That risks attend cosmetic surgery?
If they didn't, surely now you see—

You must have had an amateur boob-job
(Unless, of course, it's just a mirage).
Your bosom's badly bolstered
And poorly re-upholstered;
I deprecate your décolletage.
You're listing just a little to larboard,
And "Touche" is not as large as "Deloitte."
You were treated by a quack,
So demand your money back,
And, next time, buy direct from Voit!
Oh, I've never seen a funkier boob-job—
A boob-job made in Detroit.

Lyric © 2005 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Thank you, Miss Sallie Parker. This one's dedicated to you—whether you want it or not.