e

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

A Complement to Dixie

Once again, Blogger has gone all Frogger on me. Pour quoi? Oh, well, on to the gist:

A companion piece for Dixie's Land popped into my head today, as I suffered the Torments of the Damned [trans.: professional seminar, followed by dentist appointment]. It's to the tune of The Bonnie Blue Flag (1861), an absolutely rollicking tune, and one of the Confederacy's few hit songs. A midi file of it can be found here; watch out for that opening snare drum!

Mind you, I don't follow the original rhythm exactly, but I hope my valiant public will overlook the liberty, since (in the best tradition of 19th century American popular song) the original lyric is pretty free with the rhythm, in spots. For goodness' sake, though, be sure to sing the last two syllables of the first and fifth lines of each stanza in the proper clipped tone, or the whole thing'll go limp.

We must protect the kiddies—
The tender little tots—
Sanitizing violence
In cinematic plots;
But should they take a classic
And make it Mallomar®,
Then that is when the Thought Police
Will go a bit too far.

Too far, too far,
The prigs 'll go too far:
A re-make of Bonnie and Clyde
Without a single scar!

I don't know how they did it,
But somehow it was done:
Bonnie Parker buys it, but—
We never see a gun.
The final burst of bullets
Is hidden by the car;
But when the picture fades to pink,
They go too bloody far!

Too far, too far, &c.

Farewell to Warren Beatty!
Farewell to Arthur Penn!
Censorship has done away
With freedom-loving men.
The Fewest and the Proudest
Are killed in Kandahar
To make the World a Safer Place
For prigs who go too far.

Too far, too far, &c.

Lyric © 2007 Nathaniel DesH. Petrikov

A tip o' the hat to Miss Sallie Parker, who furnished me with the gen re Arthur Penn and wised me up before I committed a faux pas at the end of the second stanza. Ta, My Gal Sal!

Too much emphasis on the re- in re-make, you say? Well, get stuffed!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

Ultra Linking