Do You Write Song Parodies?

[scotpens]

I'm not talking about wholly original musical compositions, but rather humorous or satirical lyrics to other people's music, in the manner of Weird Al Yankovic, Bob Rivers, and Allan Sherman (if anybody's old enough to remember him).

Have you written a parody or two, even if it's only for your own amusement?

 

[Amaris]

I've written many.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

I used to - I belonged to a couple of theatre companies when I was in university that put on musicals (including one that did Star Trek musicals at conventions - mostly local, but we did the 1994 Worldcon as well), and all the songs were parodies.

The campus troupe would write a 2.5 hour show from scratch every year - I was involved from 1989 to 1994. One year, we did a show in which the ancient gods were summoned to Earth to save the university's Classical Studies department from budget cuts. Venus fell in love with Chuckie, an employee of the campus ice cream stand. I wrote a song for her to the tune of "Memory" from "Cats", which was still being sung by members of the troupe two or three years later (and I've been told that it's still remembered).

I always felt that two of my other songs were better, but one wasn't even used. It was for the 1994 show, which was set in a hospital - I wrote a song for a scene set in the morgue. A character came back to life and sang "I'm Still Alive" to the tune of "I Will Survive", by Gloria Gaynor. (It's probably the only song in history that had the word "pancreas" in its lyrics.)

The one which did get used was for the 1991 show, which was about TV - with my then-roommate, I wrote the theme song for one of the fictitious TV studio's shows, "Seven French Chefs Who Fight Crime". We took the song "Secret Agent Man" and turned it into "Secret Cajun Men".

Oh, and then there was the math song for that same show (the University of Waterloo is renowned for its math programme, and probably about a quarter of the troupe, including myself, were math students). "It's Still Utter Hell To Me", to the tune of Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock 'n' Roll To Me".

I also wrote a couple of filk songs around that time that got published, but until last fall, I hadn't written one since. However, inspiration struck while I was watching the JJ Abrams Trek movie on DVD, and I took the 60s tune "Red Rubber Ball" and turned it into "Red Matter Ball". A friend of mine who co-chairs a local filk convention asked if she could add it to her repertoire, but I haven't yet heard her perform it.

 

[scotpens]

. . . I always felt that two of my other songs were better, but one wasn't even used. It was for the 1994 show, which was set in a hospital - I wrote a song for a scene set in the morgue. A character came back to life and sang “I'm Still Alive” to the tune of “I Will Survive”, by Gloria Gaynor. (It's probably the only song in history that had the word “pancreas” in its lyrics.)

Must have been a bitch finding something to rhyme with that!

 

[Aragorn]

I rewrote the chorus of a certain song in the Heroes thread for the William Katt episode:

Believe it or not, my body just froze
I never thought I could feel so cold
Shattered away into the sewer I go
Boy does it blow
Believe it or not, I'm now snow

 

[TorontoTrekker]

. . . I always felt that two of my other songs were better, but one wasn't even used. It was for the 1994 show, which was set in a hospital - I wrote a song for a scene set in the morgue. A character came back to life and sang “I'm Still Alive” to the tune of “I Will Survive”, by Gloria Gaynor. (It's probably the only song in history that had the word “pancreas” in its lyrics.)

Must have been a bitch finding something to rhyme with that!

It would have been, but that wasn't the last word in the line, so I avoided that problem. That being said, my ex-husband once accused me of masturbating with a rhyming dictionary.

That being said, I will admit to thinking that Stephen Sondheim is a lyrical genius.

I still remember the first couple of verses and the chorus:

They thought that I was dead, my blood had petrified
Rigor mortis had set in all up and down my side
But then I felt defibrillation, and my heart began to beat
So I sat up on my slab and I began to move my feet

Oh, yes, I'm back from close to death
I had cashed in my chips, I'd bought the farm, I'd run right out of breath
Then you showed up with your paddles and you called for them to clear
And I sat up on my slab, and I grinned from ear to ear

Oh, yes it's true, I'm still alive
And as long as I stay healthy there's no way I won't survive
Those organs that you're handling, well, they still belong to me
So hands off of my pancreas and let my liver be!
Yes, go away! I'm still alive,
Oh, and I will only get inside a hearse if I can drive
Yes, I'm back on Earth to stay, no, I did not pass away
I'm still alive, I'm still alive, hey-hey!

I don't remember the third verse, but I think the fourth verse was:

Yes, I am back, and just like new
You see, these ribs are not available for barbecue
I almost kicked the bucket, it was close but no cigar
I never signed no donor card, so leave my eyeballs where they are!

I remember once getting into quite a heated argument in a writers' meeting because someone insisted that you can't take caffeine in shots, and therefore one of my lines needed to be changed to "I need a shot of booze" despite the fact that the final word had to rhyme with the word "mean". That was for "It's Still Utter Hell To Me". The head writer ended up changing my final couplet as well (grrrr) because the same person insisted that you can't get negative marks in a course, so it didn't make sense. My counter-argument was that it was funny - gods forbid that a musical comedy should be funny. Anyway, this one was a duet:

What's the matter with my calculator?
It won't do you a bit of good.
Will it help me solve this Taylor Series?
No, you must have misunderstood.
Let me tell you something strictly confidential,
Anything you do is just a waste of a pencil,
Algebra, calculus, you might think it's fabulous,
It's still utter hell to me.

Oh, it doesn't matter what it says in the textbook,
'Cause the language is all Greek to me.
There's a new theorem now, but I can't figure out
What this question is supposed to mean
I need a shot of caffeine.

What's the matter with my integration?
You're supposed to differentiate.
Will I ever be a straight-A student?
You'll be lucky just to graduate.
Back as a frosh, I thought it would be easy
Now the thought of math is enough to make me queasy
Even when they talked about the New Math, honey,
It was still utter hell to me.
I think I need a sedative, 'cause all my marks are negative
It's still utter hell to me.

That second-last line got changed to "I think I need a stimulant, 'cause flunking out is imminent". It's okay, but I still think my original line was funnier (and a better rhyme).

 

[Amaris]

Those are excellent.

 

[scotpens]

^ Very clever. The second one makes more sense than Billy Joel's original lyrics!

 

[Australis]

I did a couple of parodies about a certain poster over in TNZ. Can't repost them here.

 

[SinglePurpose]

(It's probably the only song in history that had the word "pancreas" in its lyrics.)

You would be mistaken.

 

[scotpens]

(It's probably the only song in history that had the word "pancreas" in its lyrics.)

You would be mistaken.

Cute Beach Boys imitation, but not one of Weird Al's better songs, IMO.

Speaking of which, in my elementary-school days I dashed off this little ditty to memorialize a rather embarrassing incident. (Please cut me some slack; I was 11 years old when I wrote this. Also, it’s a tad gross.)

THROW UP
(To the tune of “Shut Down” by The Beach Boys)
​

Puke it up, puke it up, janitor will have a job.

It happened at the school, down in room 18
My teacher's Mrs. Jones, yeah, and she's real mean
Well, it's early Friday morning when I get a hunch
A little later on I'm gonna lose my lunch.

Puke it up, puke it up, janitor will have a job.

I come back from lunch with a stomach ache
I gotta tell the teacher I don't feel so great
I raise my hand and say, “Excuse me, Mrs. Jones --”
But then I get a funny feeling in my bones.

Try to stay cool now, tuna fish, here it comes.

I'm holdin’ down the vomit the best I can do
But I think I'm comin’ down with intestinal flu
And now I can't hold it back no more
And whaddaya know, it's all over the floor.

(Instrumental break)

I hope that doesn't happen in the class no more
I still don't know the reason that I threw up for
But I tell you, from now on, if I'm feelin’ sick
You're gonna see me runnin’ to the bathroom quick.

Clean it up, clean it up, janitor has done his job.
Clean it up, clean it up, janitor has done his job.
Clean it up, clean it up, janitor has done his job.

(Repeat ’til fadeout)

 

[Vulcan Princess]

I write parodies from time to time. When I was a kid, my sisters and I wrote a parody of the Macarena called "Macaroni". It was all about how macaroni and cheese was gross. (I like macaroni and cheese, but the song was really funny.)

I wrote one about the bar exam, too. It's to the tune of the country song "I Love This Bar". My version is "I'll Pass the Bar". I'll have to go dig up the lyrics. I don't remember them.

 

[CmdrAJD]

I've done a few here and there, but not too many. The main one was a few years ago. A friend and I rewrote all of the songs from the musical episode of Buffy to follow the plot of Star Trek II.

 

[bluedana]

There's a Boston radio station (WROR) with a morning team that's actually pretty hilarious. They've been doing their show since the early 80s (I remember listening to them when I was in middle and high school.) They started doing Townie Tunes, which mock towns in the Boston suburban area to the tune of well-known songs. (They are extremely inside jokes, as each of these places has its own distinct characteristics.) Then they started doing "tributes" to occupations. My favorite is a tribute to proctologists, called "The Rectum of Edmund Fitzgerald."

 

[Goliath]

I'm not sure if this counts as a 'parody,' but when I was a vocalist in a punk-rock band, I wrote some new lyrics for a punk version of "Teddy-Bear Picnic," about Snow White being gang-banged by the Seven Dwarves.

Yeah, looking back, we were pretty low-brow, even for punks.

EDIT: Wait--I just remembered. We also performed an actual song parody, of "Love Bites" by Judas Priest. It was entitled "Pets Fight".

When you're in bed
Closing your eyes
That's when you hear them
That's when they rise
You run to the door
You look through the screen
That's when you see them
You let out a scream
In the dead of night
Pets fight, pets fight
In the dead of night
Pets fight.

Et cetera. At the end of the song, we would segue into a hardcore version of the Chicken Dance.

Like I said: strictly low-brow.

 

[scotpens]

Like I said: strictly low-brow.

Can't be any more lowbrow than the “vomit” song I wrote in fifth grade!

BTW, one of the most frequently parodied songs is Cole Porter's “You're the Top.” Thousands of parody versions have been written, and Porter himself composed numerous extra verses for various occasions.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Yep, I've written several. Mostly for here, but some on my own.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I'm not talking about wholly original musical compositions, but rather humorous or satirical lyrics to other people's music, in the manner of Weird Al Yankovic, Bob Rivers, and Allan Sherman (if anybody's old enough to remember him).

Have you written a parody or two, even if it's only for your own amusement?

You mean filks? It has been known...