Oh, f'Goodness' Sake, Grow Up!

I must be embarking on my second childhood. A puerile parody of Cohan's Over There has been trying to surface in the past few days, so I finally sat down to finish it, in hopes of getting it out of the system:

Underwear!
Underwear!
There's a pair
On that chair
Over there—
Now, the waistband's gummy,
The crotch is crummy;
There's lots of scummy
Pubic hair.

They've a rare
Pungent air,
Like the stench
Like a French
Camembert—
And no wonder!
Because (by thunder!)
They've been six long weeks
On this very derrière!

Lyric © 2006 by Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

I don't think for a minute that the idea for this song hasn't been done before. American men being what they are, it stands to reason.

As my faithful readers know, the views expressed in this lyric are not necessarily those of the lyricist, who conscientiously changes his underwear every month without fail.

A Song With a Gag

On my way home this evening, the Muse was kind, and took me where I never expected to go. The original song is one I hadn't expected to parody, Nora Bayes's and Jack Norworth's Shine On, Harvest Moon. I took one look at that number a long time ago and despaired, for the rhythms are a bear.

Tonight, for some reason, sign on popped into my head, and I carried on with no notion of where it would end, all the while dreading the thought of For me and my gal, and of trying to fit something to it that wasn't an anti-climax.

The final lyric:

Sign on: __________
Sign on with your *name: __________
And *date of birth: __________

Type in
*Mother's maiden name: __________
*SSN: __________
*Telephone: __________
*Address: __________
And *net worth: __________.

These days,
Private facts are few
And far between;
So sign on—
Read our new webzine:
Identity Theft.

Lyric © 2006 by Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Jumping the Gun a Wee Bit

Ron has been talking about parodying songs in the public domain, wherever possible, so I've been trying to remember the few songs I know from the Good Old Days that my (hypothetical) audience might remember, too, and not having much luck. On this morning's commute, though, the following sprang into my head, to the tune of By the Light of the Silvery Moon:

By the way—
You'll be carrion soon,
Like Daniel Boone
And the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
After noon,
You'll be changing your tune;
As daylight fades,
Your health degrades
Till you lay yourself doon
In the Ultimate Swoon.

Lyric © 2006 by Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

One wee drawback: according to Dead or Alive?, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon is the latter. So this one will have to be shelved. For now.

Year Three

Saturday marked the end of two years in the saga of my CD. To celebrate, I changed my socks. After so many weeks, it felt good.

This evening, Ron, my DAMP, and I discussed finishing touches on the official package, and Ron brought up the subject of a press release. A press release. As in distribution to radio and television stations. This boy has delusions of grandeur. So, on my way home, I celebrated further by sketching a parody of Porter's It's De-Lovely. On the subject of illegal aliens, or, as we now call them, undocumented workers. Mind you, some of these words are strictly space-fillers at this point:

We may be Pole—we may be Turk—
But we do all of your dirty work.
Don't deprive us!
Don't depress us!
Don't deport us!

When you're eleven million less,
Then who will harvest your watercress?
Don't deprive us!
Don't depress us!
Don't deport us!

Even bums
Act like snobs
When it comes
Down to menial jobs.
If you sweep
Cheap
Foreign labor under the bed,
Then Wal-Mart's dead!

So tell your bonehead bureaucrats
To let us baby-sit Britney's brats.
Don't deprive us!
Don't depress us!
Don't depreciate,
Or depopulate,
Or deplore us,
Or deplete us,
Or depose
Or deport us!

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Now, there's one glaring shortcoming in this song, and I see it as well as you do. But with the shortage of words beginning with dep-, there's not a hell of a lot I can do about it.

"Bill," By Gum!

Well, Dear Reader, the last song in the world I ever expected to parody was Jerome Kern's Bill (original lyric by Wodehouse and Hammerstein, o' course), but the idea for a refrain suddenly struck me on the way home from work this evening. I worked it out PDQ, and here it is. It's to be sung slowly, with lots and lots of feeling and a vacant expression:

To have an independent idea
In North Korea
Wastes time—
As anyone can tell you,
Our Leader
Is downright
Sublime.
He has a rare and noble mind—
With a face that recalls a dog's behind.
So He thinks for us,
Which is why we're free:
We avoid the fuss
Of democracee.

He's Kim Jong-il:
He gives us all we need.
His honorable heart is truly bountiful.
The rank and file
Should thank the vile
Security Council,
If we must eat groundsel,
'Cause it's not His fault—
He had to trade our salt
For day-old swill.
We love Him,
Because he always does
What's good for Kim Jong-il.

Lyric © 2006 by Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

The verse in particular is only makeshift at this point. The dog's behind bit seems a trifle gratuitous, for instance. Merest filler..

What tickles me about the refrain is the attempt to rhyme Council with groundsel, not surprisingly, and working swill into a song lyric. What I deplore is the "turning the corner" at vile/Security, but that can't be helped, as far as I can tell. I'll keep groping for something a little more natural-sounding, though I hate the thought of sacrificing the double rhyme of rank/file and thank/vile. As usual, hmmmmm.

Love-Hate Song

At our local mall, aptly nicknamed chiquitaville by the inimitable Miss Sallie Parker, one of my old watering holes vanished a while ago in a puff of unpaid rent. The space is now being refurbished against the advent of a barbecue joint--d.v., with full bar--and it set me to thinking that too few songs are written on that method of cookery. (I have no idea how many barbecue songs there are, I only know that it isn't enough.)

What follows is a bit schizoid. I'd intended unstinting praise, as with the song for Ruby Fruit, but it didn't turn out that way. Which is why I always say that the views expressed in my lyrics are not necessarily those of the lyricist.

The tune is Mademoiselle from Armentieres, if that's how you spell it:

What is the meal that always cheers?
Barbecue!
What is the dish that has no peers?
Barbecue!
Butcher a half a dozen steers
And eat till it’s coming out your ears—
Icky, sticky barbecue!

Brisket of beef and baby back
Barbecue;
Succulent, sweet and carbon black
Barbecue;
Make it a feast, and not a snack,
And eat till you get a heart attack—
Ooey, gooey barbecue!

This is the peptic protocol:
Barbecue!
Better for you than vitriol—
Barbecue.
Gobble the bad cholesterol—
And do it with lots of alcohol:
Easy, greasy barbecue!

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

What it wants, of course, is a Big Finish. Otherwise, it'll go on forever, and our food will get cold.

On a Sunday Afternoon

Well, I'm in danger of becoming a Jerry Scott groupie: the Sunday before last, I popped over to Greenwich Village to hear him play at a jernt called Ruby Fruit, where he wows the Sunday brunchers of an afternoon.

I was expecting a street-level establishment all in white, with plenty of light and air, but it turned out to be about as Bohemian a Rathskellar as I've seen in some time. I suppose I ought to have known, when the place's homemade website (http://www.rubyfruitnyc.com/) ceased to exist soon after I first surfed it. Sunday brunch is down a short flight of rickety steps, and it features cheesy wood paneling, a plywood bar not anchored to anything, so that it's in constant danger of being upset by some fat oaf like me, and teensy tables so crammed together that it's a wonder anyone can sit down. And in lieu of a piano, Jerry's got an electric keyboard. But despite all this, or perhaps because of it, and thanks to a goodly crowd of regulars and the inimitable Mr. Scott, the place was a positive pleasure to patronize, and a good time was had by Me.

So I thought I'd go back, this time with a lyrical offering. (I'm like a dog, in that I go about marking my territory, partly as a mnemonic device.) The tune here is Davis and Akst's Baby Face, which, oddly enough, was the tune I chose when I wrote my first Watering Hole Anthem, to the now defunct Billy Budd at Lexington Avenue and East 37th Street.

Ruby Fruit:
You wake up Sunday morning, aprés-toot.
You've got a headache, and the pain's acute—
It's a beaut!

If you're
Feel-
Ing sickly,
They're sure
To heal
You quickly!

What a hoot—
To sip mimosa from a soothing champagne flute!
So if you've lost your punch,
Enjoy a Sunday brunch
At refreshing Ruby Fruit.
There's bloody Mary
At refreshing Ruby Fruit.
Or have some sherry
At refreshing Ruby Fruit.
There's even Jerry
At refreshing Ruby Fruit!

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

I don't know what to do about aprés-toot. It's unwise to spring the creative vocab on the poor audience so early in the song. Especially an audience still recovering from Saturday night. But I haven't found a way to fix it yet.

Now, I must get back to work on a food song. It's been a while since I've written one.

Insomnia Revisited

Can't sleep, because bits of the following keep running through my head, to the tune of Gershwin's I Got Rhythm:

I search Yahoo!,
I search Google;
I use Keywords,
But I can't find any good porn.

I surf Usenet,
I troll chatrooms;
I cruise weblogs,
But I don't find any good porn.

All those boob jobs
Look lopsided.
(Here's what I did:
Laughed with scorn.)

I'll use PayPal,
I'll use plastic;
I'll blow big bucks,
But I'll bet, as sure as I'm born,
What I get is Photoshopworn.

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov, not that it's worth it, but he had to get it out of his system

Rambo Addend-endum

Well, you could knock me down with a feather! It seems that Rambo never had owt to do with Apollo Creed. I could have sworn that the two of them had fought in more than one flick—but I'm assured by a most reliable source that the fights with Creed occurred in flicks that are not Rambo flicks, but entirely different flicks altogether. Who in HELL woulda thunk that Sylvester Stallone has played more than one character in his career? Not I, by cracky!

I'm still skeptical, reliable source or not, so I'm investigating further, in hopes of discovering just what flicks these alleged "other" flicks might be, if they're not Rambo flicks. Meanwhile, I've withdrawn the reference to Apollo Creed (though I liked how his name scanned), and altered the tagline so that it doesn't interrupt the dramatic flow:

I whupped the Vietcong
In Vietnam;
I'm twice as strong
As Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Damn—
He ain't no Rambo!
As for me—perhaps I am.

Lyric © 2006 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

As my ear hears it, the words are pronounced Vee-yet-kong and Vee-yet-naam. Go thou and do likewise!

Rambo Addendum

Thoughts for a second third-of-a-CD have been swirling about in the only brain available here at Death and Taxes, and a finish for Me, I'm Not Rambo (to the tune of Me and My Shadow) has formed itself as a result. It's only a half-a-chorus. The tagline might still amuse (barely) the third time around, but three more times would definitely pall. So, starting at the release:

I whupped Apollo Creed;
I conquered 'Nam;
I see no need
For Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Damn!
Me, I'm not Rambo.
Then again—perhaps I am.

Lyric © Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

Something has to be done with that last tagline, though—it buggers up the flow of thought.

I have no idea whether this or any particular song will find its way onto Part II of the CD. I've got my eyes on Wonderbra (as it were), since we've already arranged it; but that song needs more to be a full-fledged track. If the idea can't sustain another chorus, we might make a medley of two short songs. But what to match it with? Something about clothing—They Have to Be Blue—or something about breasts—You Must Have Had an Amateur Boob-Job?

Does Part II go for an English theme, in a bid for Chappell's attention (ha, ha)? Or should it feature self-deprecatory songs, like On a Pestilent Day Like Today or the aforesaid Me, I'm Not Rambo, both of which got a reasonable reception at Danny's?