in which my sister impresses me with her improvisational skills

With the Christmas holiday upon us, I was thinking of the song, "Winter Wonderland."Humming it, I started changing lyrics in my head. Bored, I texted a line to my sister:

In the oven you can melt a snowman.

I wasn't sure if she'd recognize where this was from. But she texted back:

His carrot nose will turn mushy and brown.

Not to be outdone, I came back with:

Ask him if he's Jewish, he'll say "No, man."

My sister completed the verse with:

"Don't let such meshugaas get you you down."

parodies of my past

I've been on a mini-jag about parodies recently, so -- what the-hey-- let me mention a couple parodies that schoolmates wrote years ago.

The first mention goes to Matt Ruff -- I am not changinmg the name since he is a public figure. Matt is a novelist whom I knew in high school. Maybe that's too strong. Matt and I were mutually aware of each other's existence. We were in at least one class together -- a creative writing class taught by Frank McCourt (who would go on to win a Pulitzer prize for his memoir, Angela's Ashes. I doubt that Matt would remember me.

Anyway, many of the school's clubs published annual or semi-annual magazines (I was on the staff of The Straphanger, which was published by the school's subway club). One of the magazines -- I think it only published one issue -- was a creative writing compilation called The Mag Bag because it was distributed as loose sheets of paper in a plastic bag. What I mean is, if you bought a copy, you got a clear plastic bag with a stack of paper in it.

That one issue contained a few (song parodies that Matt wrote. All of the parodies were of Billy Joel songs. I remember one of them, a parody of "Don't Ask Me Why," was titled "Don't Ask Me Why." I remember nothing alse about it. There was at least one that I recall nothing about. The one that I have some real memory of was "Only The Smart Die Young," which was a parody of "Only The Good Die Young." By way of background, this was Stuyvesant High School, and the conceit at the school was that we were the smartest kids out there. Admission was granted via exam, and we, the students, were told from day one that we were the best. I wish I could remember all of the words to "Only the Smart..." but -- 30-plus years later, some elude me. I do remember the following:

Come out Virginia, don't let me wait.
You Stuyvesant girls start much too late
Ah, but sooner or later it comes down to fate.
I might as well be the one.

Well, they showed you a classroom and told you to learn
[something something] or you're gonna burn

You might have heard that I run with a neanderthal crowd.
We ain't too pretty, we ain't too proud.
We might be cheating a bit too loud.

She never cared for me
But did she ever fix a grade for me?

They say there's a college for those who will wait.
Some say it's better but I say it ain't

You got a nice black gown and a party on your graduation.
You have a brand new school, and a golden rule.
But Virginia they didn't give you quite enough education.
You didn't count on me.
You were counting on your SAT.

You get the picture. It was really a well-done parody.

I'm not quite sure what would be an appropriate video to accompany the post above, since Matt never did record this song (to the mest of my knowledge). So, what the heck, here's a video of Frank McCourt (mentioned above), sharing his memories of me.

The second song parody I want to mention was from my college years. Every year the Student Association would have a talent show. I had a friend, Steve, whom I had known since high school, who liked to put together a song-and-dance routine centerred on a song parody. During our sophomore year he (and the two others he got to perform with him) won first prize. But they had some kind of dispute over how to divvy up the cash prize. One of his coperformers thought it should be split evenly. He, having written and choreographed the routine, felt that he should get the lion's share. I have no idea how it all turned out in the end.

At any rate, during our junior or senior year (I forget which), Steve asked me to be part of his act. It was three of us in costumes (I was the milk carton), singing  a medley of "You Give Lunch a Bad Name" and "Living on Bayer." These were parodies of the Bon Jovi songs "You Give Lunch a Bad Name" and "Living on a Prayer." These parodies were about the food in the cafeteria. The parodies were very well-written, though I can't remember any lines. Unfortunately the sound system wasn't loud enough, so wehen we went on I couldn't hear the background music, and that threw us off. We recovered, but that false start cost us points and we didn't win.

At least there was no prize money to fight over.

on the difficulty of writing parodies

In a recent post I presented the lyrics (as best as I remember them, anyway) of the one parody song I ever wrote.

I was talking about parodies with a co-worker (whom I will call Aryeh because I feel like it) who thinks writing a song parody is easier than writing an original song. I disagree. Aryeh says that writing a parody provides structure. I think it's more accurate to say that it imposes structure.

A good parody is more than just a song written to the tune of another song. For a parody to be any good, there have to be other elements elements that evoke the original, be they parallel structures or words that sound similar to words in the original -- particularly in the title. Part of what makes Allan Sherman's "Harvey and Sheila," "Won't You Come Home, Disraeli" and "My Zelda" work is that the titles sound similar to "Hava Nagila," "Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey" and "Matilda." And I think the parts that work best in my "Game of Pac Man" parody are the ones that clearly remind the listener of the original song. For example, "And the sign said the score that is highest is written on the Pac Man screen" which is similar to "And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls."

But while a good parody should be similar to and evocative of the original, it can't be too similar. If a parody has too few words changed, then there's not enough payoff. I remember once hearing some performer in a comedy club doing what she introduced as a parody of Cyndi Lauper's ""Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." But it just consisted of replacing the word "fun" everytime that title line appeared. The first time it was "Girls just want to have sex." Then "Girls just want to have cock." Then...well, you get the idea. There just asn't enough to make it funny. I suppose if she had ended it with "Girls just want to have a chance to be taken seriously and paid the same as a man would be paid for doing the same job in the same circumstances and with the same experience," then it may have been funny in a kind of anti-funny way.

So it's a tight rope to walk. And it's never been my thing. I much prefer the freedom of writing something original. I can vary the melody as needed, or put in just the right number of verses. And if one verse is shorter, then I have the freedom to be clever with it and just make that part of the song.

But my hat is off to Allan Sherman and Weird Al Yankovic who could write damn good parodies.

I sign off with one video of each.

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.