the one parody i wrote

Listening to Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence," I had a vague memory from 30-plus years ago. I was in high school, writing songs. That was my most prolific period as a songwriter, if you don't consider quality. Translated: I wrote crappy songs, but I wrote a lot of them. Anyway, I recall one of the songs I wrote was titled "The Game of Pac Man." It was a parody of "The Sounds of Silence." As best as I recall, it was the only full song parody I ever wrote. Oh, I wrote isolated lines or phrases of parody here or there. And I have written a few verses of parody here and there. Not that I committed them to paper. But I wrote them in my head. An example is John Hiatt's "She Don't Love Nobody." It was, however, obscene, so I'll not recount the lyrics here and now.

I wish I could recall the exact lyrics to "The Game of Pac Man." Following is the best I can recall:

Hello Pac Man my, old friend.
I've come to play with you again
Because a gremlin slowly creeping
Ate me up while I was sleeping.
And the gremlin that is driving me insane
Still remain
Within the game of Pac Man.

In the arcade I walked alone.
In the aisles I still roam
Beneath the bright glow of a Pac Man screen
I turn around and let out a scream.
When my eyes were stabbed by the pills of enourmous size
That energize
Within the game of Pac Man.

And in the naked light I saw
10,000 Pac Men, maybe more
Pac Men chasing without catching
Pac Men eating without retching
Pac Men eating dots that gremlins never shared
No one dared
Disturb the game of Pac Man

"Fools" said I, "you do not know
Obsessions like a cancer grow.
Give me the stick I beseach you.
Watch my play that I might I teach you."
But my words, like silent Pac Man fell
And echoed in the well of Pac Man.

And the people stayed and played.
And the little pills they ate.
And the screen flashed out its warning
'Cause many points they were scoring
And the sign said the score that is highest
Is written on the Pac Man screen
And that would mean
You've beaten the game of Pac Man.
Whether it was a good parody or not is up for debate. Certainly there were good elements.

But I'm not really into writing song parodies. More about that in a nother post if I ever get around to it.