November 4, 2005
Beverage songs
In your mind's ear, imagine the song "Tequila," rearranged as chamber music. The new refrain, of course, is "Darjeeling!"
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Friday, November 4, 2005 at 8:32 am PST
May 30, 2005
If I were a carpenter
Just one verse so far.
If I were a carpenter, and you were a walrus
Would you lure the oysters away, would you share the mollusks?
If a hatter were my trade, would you come to tea?
Would you draw from the treacle-well, and take the dishes behind me?
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Monday, May 30, 2005 at 11:09 pm PDT
September 22, 2003
Ikea Lament
To the tune of "Lady Franklin's Lament."
The pressboard bookshelves lay in a heap.
I gave it up and went off to sleep.
I dreamed a dream that stopped my snore
For I was lost in an Ikea store.
I had a cart and a yellow bag,
I munched on meatballs and picked up tags.
But when at last it came time to leave,
The way outside I could not perceive.
Turning around, it seemed all the same.
Mountains of things with their Swedish names.
Though all the rooms were signed and lit,
The one path to travel was twisted and split.
Upstairs and down I went through the aisles,
Through desks, chairs, beds, boxes, plates and files.
Ikea clerks when they did pass through
Could not be caught when I tried to pursue.
In Emery Bay where the shoppers go,
Ikea's exit no man may know.
Ikea's exit no tongue can tell,
It seemed my doom to forever there dwell.
When I awoke, my shelves caused me pain
For a missing part I must return again.
Ten thousand krona's not too much to pay
To avoid the trap of Ikea's maze.
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Monday, September 22, 2003 at 8:30 am PDT
October 30, 2000
Gonna E-Mail Myself to You
I never really liked this very much -- it doesn't really do much besides change the original song to the Internet milieu -- but what the heck.
This is a parody of the original song by Woody Guthrie. It is the song that (as of December 2003) the Postal Service is using for its ads. (Without checking I'm not sure, but it sounds like it's John McCutcheon's version from his album also called "Mail Myself to You." Hooray for the Apple Music Store for letting me listen to 30 seconds of this for free.) This parody (especially the spoken part) is based on Pete Seeger's version on his "We Shall Overcome" concert album.
Gonna E-Mail Myself to You
I'm gonna wrap myself in IP
I'm gonna use TCP too
Four octets on the top of my head
Gonna e-mail myself to you.
I'm gonna tie me up with SMTP
I'm gonna use sendmail too
Climb up inside my hard drive
Gonna e-mail myself to you.
(spoken)
And then my modem comes and takes me out of the hard drive and breaks me up into little packets and takes me down to my ISP. And they put me on a big T1 in a big ATM network. And then it gets to your ISP and they take the packets and throw them off the T1 and they take me down to their port selector and your modem comes and takes me down the POTS line to your house.
When you find me in your e-mail
Double-click and let me out
Get those header lines offa my fingers
Wash that spam taste outta my mouth.
Take me out of my IP wrapper
Wash the octets offa my head
Fill me up with steaming lattes
Stay up geeking out of bed.
I'm gonna wrap myself in IP
I'm gonna use TCP too
Four octets on the top of my head
Gonna e-mail myself to you.
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Monday, October 30, 2000 at 10:00 pm PST
November 11, 1998
About my lyrics
For some reason I've never really been able to figure out, I occasionally rewrite song lyrics. Science-fiction fans call them "filk songs," a term that supposedly arose from a typographical error. Although it does lend one ideas (perhaps an article on "The Filk Process" by Alan Limax?) I've never liked the term very much. It strikes me as self-indulgent.
Or maybe it's just the filk songs themselves that are self-indulgent. Just changing the background of a song from contemporary to futuristic isn't particuarly interesting or amusing. That's not to say one couldn't write an amusing science-fiction parody, but I would hope it would have some point beyond that.
Of course, if the song isn't funny at all, it's not really parody, is it? "Bob Dylan's Dream" was inspired by "Lady Franklin's Lament" and many phrases are the same, but nobody could really call it a parody. [Unlike "Ikea Lament", which was written years after I originally wrote this.]
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Wednesday, November 11, 1998 at 11:27 am PST
October 3, 1998
Song fragments
These are unfinished bits or bits that don't show enough promise to be a real song. Many of them come from an attempt I did at writing "high-tech folk songs," few of which actually worked. The idea seems too contrived, now. Oh well. Hooray for the art of punmanship.
Didn't pay the bills on my Cellular One
I fought McCaw and McCaw won
I fought McCaw and McCaw won
Didn't have the money to pay none
I fought McCaw and McCaw won
I fought McCaw and McCaw won
I lost my cell phone and I feel so bad
My phone number's gone
Don't tell me cellular's just some fad
I fought McCaw and McCaw won
I fought McCaw and McCaw won
I took (and later helped teach) a class in university about the art and practice of desktop publishing. I did a project to evaluate textbooks for the class. One of the books about how to use PageMaker was so badly designed that I couldn't recommend it even though the content was in fact very good. It was set entirely in Lubalin Graph, with keywords set in scaled small caps (that is, small caps that are simply scaled-down versions of the big caps). This looks bad anyway and looks absolutely horrible in a face where all the lines appear to be the same thickness, as in Lubalin Graph. I learned to really hate Lubalin Graph after that. (And later I bought a laser printer that had it built in. Ugh.)
Anyway, when I realized that "Cumberland Gap" had the same meter as "Lubalin Graph" I couldn't help trying to write a parody. It never really worked. I find longer verses make parodies much easier to write.
I cried so hard it made me laugh;
I read a book set in Lubalin Graph.
CHORUS:
Lubalin Graph, Lubalin Graph:
Just can't stand that Lubalin Graph.
Typographic arts and crafts
are demeaned by Lubalin Graph.
Of the faces Egyptian
None are worse than Lubalin's.
My eyes squint with Avant Garde;
Lubalin Graph is twice as hard.
Small caps scaled from full size
Show imbalance to the eyes.
CHORUS: (sing twice)
Weave, weave, weave me a web site
Out on the internet.
Weave me the hope of a new IPO,
And fill up my wallet.
Well I've seen the Apple and the Commodore crumble
Shine on me again.
Even Microsoft has stumbled,
Shine on me again.
If only I could money borrow
Shine on me again.
I'd help you to fund your new IPO
Shine on me again.
Come all of you webmasters,
Good news to you I'll tell
About that new ISP
Who's come in here to dwell.
CHORUS:
Which site are you on?
Which site are you on?
Which site are you on?
Which site are you on?
This has been running through my mind forever. I never could think of a verse though (to take the place of "I got a mule and her name is Sal," and so forth).
We've hauled some music in our day,
Mozart, Chopin, and Bizet,
And we've run every inch of the way
From the outer ear to the cochlea.
CHORUS:
Low note, everybody down,
Low note, for we're haulin' down a sound.
And you'll always know your Elgar, you'll know your Pachelbel
If you've ever navigated on the Ear Canal.
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Saturday, October 3, 1998 at 10:13 pm PDT
June 23, 1997
The Intellectual's Azures
This came from when I was thinking about the blues and how they were originally written by people without much education. Intellectuals get depressed, but instead of writing songs they've turned to psychology. Maybe if the blues used more hi-falutin' words?
The Intellectual's Azures
My manuscript was shredded
My articles were returned
My tenure was rejected
My résumés were spurned
I've got the azures - the intellectual's azures. Uh-huh.
I must bemoan my fate:
Adjunct at Chico State
I've got the azures. Oh yeah.
Got a BA from Berkeley
A PhD from Yale
But when I try to get a job
I seem to always fail
I've got the azures - the intellectual's azures. Uh-huh.
UMass says I'm a clown
Nine UCs turned me down
I've got the azures. Oh yeah.
I wrote on deconstruction
Of Huckleberry Finn
But I found out just yesterday
Meaning's no longer 'in!'
I've got the azures - the intellectual's azures. Uh-huh.
The journal sent it back;
So much for tenure track
I've got the azures. Oh yeah.
They're cutting my whole department
To cut back all the chaff
I guess it could be somewhat worse
I could be on the staff
I've got the azures - the intellectual's azures. Uh-huh.
The provost got a raise
While laying off TAs
I've got the azures. Oh yeah.
I worked for years to get both of
The robe and cornered hat
But in my new job I now say
"Would you like fries with that?"
I've got the azures - the intellectual's azures. Uh-huh.
At least they call me "Doc".
Down at Jack in the Box
I've got the azures. Oh yeah.
But even if I had a job
At university
I'd make close to the same amount
I'd make at Mickey D's
I've got the azures - the intellectual's azures. Uh-huh.
Money I'll never see
From my 403(b)
This trend could mean the death
Of TIAA-CREF.
I'll never get to be
Part of AAUP
I've got the azures. Oh yeah.
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Monday, June 23, 1997 at 10:09 pm PDT
December 3, 1996
Roger Sage and the New York Times
When I was a sophomore in high school, one of my fellow students wrote several different letters to the school newspaper, and they would get printed even though everybody on the newspaper staff thought they were less than valuable. As I recall he was the only one who had any letters printed over a period of several months.
This is the first parody I remember writing. I thought I had lost it but it turned up in a box of mementos. It's not really very good (the meter is awful) but I think if one is defaming someone named Roger Sage one could hardly pick a better song to do it with.
Roger Sage and the New York Times
Are you going to print that letter?
Roger Sage and the New York Times
Sage's ideas: Our readers will scare
Drop our circulation to nine.
Please don't print old Sage's letter.
Roger Sage and the New York Times
For sanity don't you have a care?
This will lose us zillions of dimes.
Don't ask me again, Sage, about that letter.
Roger Sage and the New York Times
Sage, your ideas will open our wounds bare.
Save the riots for another time.
Oh, no, they printed Sage's letter.
Roger Sage and the New York Times
I'm getting out, right now while I still dare.
My reputation: can I save it in time?
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Tuesday, December 3, 1996 at 10:08 pm PST
October 14, 1996
Headhunter, Headhunter
I wrote this in October, 1996. Someone at SCO asked me if they could use it in a company theatrical of some sort. I don't know if they did or not.
I suspect I was half thinking of Frank Jacobs' "Headshrinker, Headshrinker" from Mad magazine when I wrote this. Given that, and that a headhunter is in fact another kind of matchmaker, I can't say this is very imaginitive. Oh well.
Headhunter, Headhunter
Headhunter, headhunter please hunt my head
Offer me jobs
Get out the lead
Headhunter, headhunter look in your book
And get me a lot more bread
Send me
To far-off and distant shores
Where I'll do a job interview
They're I'll
Play tourist on your dime
Knowing the bills are all going to you...
Headhunter, headhunter please hunt my head
Work I have now
Fills me with dread
Headhunter, headhunter find me ano-
ther place I can work, instead!
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Monday, October 14, 1996 at 4:50 pm PDT
May 28, 1995
Big Slug
Like many schools (although not UCSC as far as I know), U.C. Berkeley has a lot of "school spirit" songs. One of them is called "Big C," about the large C installed on the hillside above the Berkeley campus. The melody to this song was used by a UCLA student for "Sons of Westwood," the best-known UCLA spirit song. I figured U.C. Santa Cruz could also use a spirit song. Of course, Santa Cruz is a little different than most other schools.
Tom Lehrer, who wrote "Fight Fiercely, Harvard," taught at Santa Cruz for many years. (I would have liked to, but I never got around to taking his math class. I knew somebody who took his musical class and it sounded like far too much work, putting on a different play every two weeks.) I guess he wouldn't have wanted to try to recapture his success... still, if anybody could have given the Banana Slugs the school spirit song they deserve, it would have been him.
Big Slug
(If UCLA can do it...)
On our steeply sloping footpaths,
Sits our lovely B'nana Slug.
The Slug means for all to think
Of peace from man to bug.
Yellow Slug is ever-present;
Comes on us from below,
If he should hear a word
Unkind or untoward,
He will shake his head "No,no."
What's he say?
He says No! No!
No-oh-oh!
We are sons and we are daughters
Of our shaken Santa Cruz.
We are here to be enlightened,
And also here to muse.
In siblinghood we'll be united
All over our Earth;
With politics of mass,
We'll fight for working class;
For love there'll be no dearth!
Permalink | From the lyrics department | Posted Sunday, May 28, 1995 at 12:10 am PDT