Septennial Song, Revisited

Some polishing of my latest, particularly the tagline, which is almost tolerable now.

One of my failings as a lyricist is that, in short order, I begin not to give a damn about a work in progress, especially a bread-and-butter thing like this. It's at this point that I begin to tinker with particular words, changing 'em first one way, then another, with never any sense that I prefer one way or the other. Several lines below have changed back and forth several times, before ending up as they were to begin with. Ah, me. I'll bet Johnny Mercer never felt such a malaise; when he thought of a word, he knew whether it was the right one or the wrong one.

Seven—
It's been seven—
Seven awesome and extraordinary years
With a pianist who hasn't any peers!
Lift your glasses and convert your "Cheers!" to cheers!

Seven—
Lucky seven!
(It's a thought to keep among his souvenirs!
And, in case it isn't music to his ears—
Lift your glasses and distil your "Cheers!" to cheers!)

Should we sit around and listen
To the music of the spheres?
No, we'd rather hear "Perfesser" Scott
Another seven years.

Do we want to watch a baby
Being bruised by Britney Spears?
We'd prefer to watch "Perfesser" Scott
Another seven years.

—Scott, m'boy!
You play one hell of a song!
—The spell of a song
That swept us along
For

Seven
(Count 'em, seven)—
Seven seasons filled with gaiety and tears.
Thank the Lord, he chose the best of all careers!
Lift your glasses and transmute your "Cheers!" to cheers!

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Septennial Song

Jerry Scott, the indefatigable pianist at one of my watering holes, Danny's Grand Sea Palace, will be celebrating his seventh anniversary at that joint on September 9, so I thought a tribute would be in order. To the tune of Berlin's Dancing Cheek to Cheek, which by now I've parodied ten times, I reckon. I don't know why it tempts me so, but it does.

One reason might be that it presents certain features of interest that pose challenges that I seldom manage to overcome. Take the phrase, cheek to cheek: it's not easy to replicate that. Although one could sit and think of plenty of congruent phrases, like neck and neck, house to house, shore to shore, and so on, once you choose a phrase you no longer have control of the subject. Conversely, if you have a ripe subject, you rather paint yourself into a corner as far as finding a suitable phrase is concerned. The phrase chosen—or, more accurately, jerry-rigged—in the following ditty leaves much to be desired. But I'm stuck with it, I suppose. All I can say about the final version of the tagline is, you should have seen the drafts.

Another feature of interest is the last third of the bridge, which offers rich dramatic possibilities, if one can construct a four-syllable rhyme. This time, the rhyme is not so hot from a semantic point of view, but I couldn't bring my self to excise Scott, m'boy,/You play one hell of a song, which fits the expression of the melody like a glove, to my ear, notwithstanding the shortness of the syllable Scott.

Finally, there's the challenge of finding enough rhymes for the tagline to fill a chorus without resorting to identities. And don't expect me to give you here a treatise on the distinction between rhyme and identity, or even a link. Google it, you lazy bums!

Now, the song:

Seven—
It's been seven—
Seven awesome and extraordinary years
With a pianist who hasn't any peers!
Everybody, reinforce your cheers with "Cheers!"

Seven—
Lucky seven!
(There's a thought to keep among his souvenirs!
And, in case it isn't music to his ears—
Everybody, reinforce your cheers with "Cheers!")

We could sit around and listen
To the music of the spheres,
But we'd rather hear Professor Scott
Another seven years.

We're supposed to watch a baby
Being bruised by Britney Spears;
But, instead, we'll watch Professor Scott
Another seven years.

—Scott, m'boy!
You play one hell of a song!
—The spell of a song
That swept us along
For

Seven
(Count 'em—seven)—
Seven seasons filled with gaiety and tears.
Thank the Lord, he chose the best of all careers!
Everybody, reinforce your cheers with "Cheers!"

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Shock

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. The Nyok Times reports that, after nearly ten years, authorities have at last revealed that Jon Benet Ramsey was a girl. Shades of J.T. Leroy!

We still don't know how the poor thing came by a moniker like Jon Benet.

Oy

I recently returned from a week in California, which I spent in the company of She Who Must Be Obeyed and the Nicest Chap in the World. Apart from the company, the browsing and sluicing, and the rather vague but pleasant wandering around we did, it was a most uneventful trip. Why, in God's name, anybody would voluntarily live there is beyond me. L.A., the poet informs us, is a Great Big Freeway; and, while I don't quarrel with this characterization, it seems incomplete. I would add that it's also a Great Big Sauna and a Great Big Snoozefest. Old Sol was doing his best to incinerate the citizenry, but every goddam bar and restaurant had its doors and windows open wide, as if the weather was perfectly fine. Apparently, to a Californian, sweating like a pig is natural and an unavoidable aspect of the human condition. I was chagrined to find the womenfolk uniformly unattractive; most of the inhabitants had skin like rawhide. I was reminded of the words of the lyricist (me):

On a scrofulous morning like this,
When the sun is a big melanoma machine.

During the week, three ideas came to me for parodies, but I haven't worked any of them out, mostly because they're of songs I don't know--always a problem, that--and I'm too lazy to buy the sheet music. Instead, I wander the streets muttering, Me, I'm not Rambo, until I'm heartily sick of that one. Still, there's no cure for being pestered by a song parody but to write another song parody, so I suppose I'd better buckle down to it.