A Quick Word Before I Tease Some Fundamentalist Christians

Now, before anyone gets offended, let me make one thing clear:

The religion I’m mocking is homophobic, misogynist, theologically ignorant and intellectually dishonest.

If that does not describe your religion then I’m not having a go at your religion.

On the other hand, if that is your religion, well then yeah, I’m mocking it.

As Bill Hicks once said, “So? Forgive me.”

My Fundy Christian Girl

She likes to sing,
Yes she does.
She likes to dance
All night long.
She likes to paint,
You can tell
From her bedroom walls depictin’ single mothers
Burning in Hell.

Wuh-uh-oh-oo-oo-Hoah
She’s my fundy Christian girl
(Repeat)

She likes to read
Just one Book.
She likes to hold
Just one view.
She helps the poor
When she can
Thank the Lord their misery is part of His
Divine lovin’ plan.

Wuh-uh-oh-oo-oo-Hoah
She’s my fundy Christian girl
(Repeat)

God says we gotta wait ’til we’re married.
We wait Monday to Friday and then
We do it like bunnies on the weekend,
Get forgiven and the cycle starts all over again.

My friends say that I must be crazy,
How can I stand to be so good?
And then she does all my cooking and my cleaning
Like her fundy book says a fundy woman should.

Wuh-uh-oh-oo-oo-Hoah
She’s my fundy Christian girl
(Repeat)

And maybe every band she loves
Can’t play for shit or write a decent tune.
Still, I will love her ’til the end of time,
Which she promises is coming soo – oo – ooon,

She’s my fundamental, tub-thumping,
Homophobic, pick and choosing,
Literal interpreter of laws

She’s very, very big on family,
When she says save the family
She means save her family
From yours …

Wuh-uh-oh-oo-oo-Hoah
She’s my fundy Christian girl
(Repeat, etc.)

My Song For The Royal Wedding

I don’t want you to think this song happened because I think Australia’s Head of State should be an Australian.

No, I’d feel sorry for the royal couple, and bemused by the hysterical coverage of their wedding, even if I were a fervent loyalist.

Hence this rueful number, in the style of early Elton John:

Look At Us

Look at us, a modern couple.
A Windsor man, and you so normal.
We keep things semi-formal at our place,
Or at least we try.
I’m just some guy
Mucking in with a girl nine-tenths as privileged as I.

And do I love you?
Yes, of course I do.
Like any man, I stand here, proud,
And pledge this love before the crowd,
To you, the intersection of what I want with what I’m allowed.

And am I happy?
Look, the future shines
With throne and church and suits for free,
And stamps and coins that look like me,
As happy as a doomed and a dying institution can be.

Look at us, we’ll raise our children,
Pay tax and keep grace under pressure,
We smile like cats from Cheshire at the rude
stuff that people say,
And we’ll be praised.
Just for doing the things a thousand couples do each day.

Is there a downside?
Oh, my word indeed:
When every blemish on your skin
Becomes your family’s mortal sin,
Reflect that you could choose, and you knew what you were getting going in.

For England needs us.
And what does it say?
How sad and lonely must the people be
To trot out every useless Earl?
What anguish makes them want to see
This mindless social whirl?
How deep must the feelings of inadequacy go
For them to elevate us so?

Look at us, a modern couple.
Look at us.
Look at all this fuss.

Look at us.

All I Wanna Do Is Conceive With You

Some time ago, I posted that Heart’s All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You (written by Robert John “Mutt” Lange) is an awful and incoherent song.

Then I rewrote the lyric, to highlight its awfulness, and so that the song at least made sense.

Much, much later, I was asked to perform at the Q Theatre’s 2011 Season Launch. I was there because John Shortis and Moya Simpson (in whose show I am to appear) couldn’t make it.

And I had nothing, I mean nothing to perform.

That afternoon, nothing.

As I ironed my shirt that evening, nothing.

Then I remembered: John and Moya’s show is about great lyrics, and great lyricists.  Why not pay tribute to a turd?

I practised All I Wanna Do Is Conceive With You in the car on the way out to Queanbeyan, waited in the audience for my bit, explained to the crowd what a dreadful song the original is, and did my version at the piano.

I thought it went OK: big laugh on the kidney line, and then I heard from Moya a couple of days later.

“Well, I don’t know what you did,” she said, “but the sound guys say they pissed themselves.”

So.  Pretend that I’m a woman, trawling for man-seed, and strap yourselves in:

It was a rainy night when he came into sight
Standing by the road, no umbrella, no coat
So I pulled up alongside and I offered him a ride
He accepted with a smile so we drove for a while

I tried real hard not to stare, checked his teeth and head of hair
I studied his face, remembered my mace
He seemed pretty stupid, I lied just in case

“All I wanna do is make love to you
Say you will, you want me to
All I wanna do is make love to you
And if you knock me up, that’s OK too”

And so we found this hotel, both ignoring the smell
He made magic that night. Oh, he did everything right
He brought the woman out in me, so many times, needlessly
And in the morning when he woke all I’d left him was a note

I told him I am the compost, you are the seed
Or I’m a tree surgeon, de-sapping your tree
Don’t try to find us, no not at all
If we need a kidney, we’ll give you a call

All I had to do was conceive with you
One fertile night was all we knew
All I had to do was conceive with you
I was ovulatin’ about halfway through

Oh, we made love
Love like parents
All night long
We made la-harv …

And then it happened one day, I slutted ’round the same way, and
He was so surprised to see
I’d brought our bastard with me
I said please, please understand
I’m in love with another man
But we cannot make babies, ho-uh-ooh-oh
So we hatched this ridiculous plaaaaaaaaaan …

‘nd all I had to do was conceive with you
One fertile night was all we knew
All I had to do was conceive with you
Now, do you wanna try for number two?

All I wanna do is conceive with you
Frankly, any guy will prob’ly do
All I wanna do, all I wanna do
Is have unprotected sex with strangers
Like Momma taught me to.
All I wanna do,
All I wanna do,
Is steal your sperm and raise your children
Without asking you.
All I wanna do is conceive with you
All night long,
All night long,
All night,
Yeah ———-

I changed the key of the backing track, which makes the backing singers sound like chipmunks.  I think it suits the material perfectly. Oh, and by the way, Ann Wilson, the original singer?  A hell of a vocal. Just taking the piss out of her, I nearly lost my voice.

This Is How Sunday Mornings Are At My Place

A brief look at highlights in the Sunday morning song canon:

Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down is about being miserable and hungover.

The Velvet Underground’s Sunday Morning is a gentle gripe about the world not leaving you alone to be stoned.  But hey, it’s nothing, man.

The Commodores’ Easy is about leaving a lousy girlfriend, and its Sunday morning is figurative (“easy like Sunday morning”).

U2′s Sunday Bloody Sunday is about a massacre that occurred late on a Sunday afternoon, so it’s probably, strictly, a Monday morning song (“I can’t believe the news today”).

No Doubt’s On Sunday Morning is about a breakup recollected, as it were, in tranquillity.

Maroon 5′s Sunday Morning is about having a nice lie-in with your loved one.

Joe Jackson’s Sunday Papers is about the joys of tabloid gossip, and it counts, I think, because its papers are delivered through the door.  That traditionally happens in the morning.

None of these are about my Sunday mornings.  This is my Sunday morning:

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning.
It’s 6am and there’s a lawn to mow -
No, wait, it’s raining.
School uniforms
Will need to be dried
Inside today.

Kids, whose coat is this?
Well, who on earth is Jack?
We’re out of milk, and
I could use the UHT, but
Why have coffee just to make it taste like – ?

Shit, that birthday party,
When does it? – ah, not ’til 10 -
We’ll need to buy a present and a card,
We’ll get the gift bag that kid gave to us
And give it back to him again,
On Sunday morning.

What’s that outside?
Is that a dog?  That’s not the neighbour’s dog.
No, I don’t know why
The remote’s not working.
Try blowing on the batteries,
I’ll go get milk.

The servo should be open,
No, the chemist’s will still be closed
On Sunday morning,
How the driveway floods these days.
Cement would cost a thousand, fifteen hundred, maybe more, and
The same again for the garage door,

It’s time to trim the plum tree
Before it fruits all over Sonia’s car
Like it did last year.

The paper says the economy’s wrecked,
based off these numbers -
“based off”, that isn’t grammar -
Well, not grammar I respect,
I mean, for which I have respect,
Goddamn that plum tree.

Hi, I’m back with milk.
I’ll get hayfever tablets when the shops aren’t closed.
Well, it’s Sunday morning,
So, I guess at 10 -

Shit, that birthday starts at 10.
Well, I dunno, how old is he, eight?
He’s not my friend. Does he like books?
Would he like one of yours?
Well, you know a new one?
Cash in an envelope it is again,
on Sunday morning

Is that dog still there?
I’ll put the uniforms on to wash.
I’m not sure about the bacon,
It was old last week.
You can’t wear that to a party,
Because it’s raining, that’s why.
No, it is – well, it will be -
Try your jeans.
They might, just try.
Those aren’t your jeans.
Alright, alright, you’re dressed,
But with a jacket,
No, no, with a jacket,
It was not a request,
On Sunday morning.

Some other batteries might work.
There are three inside the race car,
Rechargeables, I think.
I charged them up last Sunday morning.

God, yes, a coffee, thank you.
Oh, that hits the spot.
I’m glad we didn’t use the UHT.
I’ll do the lawn next week.
The coat? Apparently it’s Jack’s.
Can’t wait to get to work tomorrow morning
And relax.

An Original Christmas Song, For Your Delectation

I was at the back of the express lane at Woolies, Calwell, around the middle of December 2008, and the guy in front of me realised he’d forgotten something.  He left the queue to fetch it.  When he got back, the following exchange occurred:

Me:  It’s alright, just go back in front of me.

Him:  Really?

Me:  Yeah, it’s fine, I’m not in a hurry.

Him:  OK.

Woman at checkout:  Wow!  You don’t see much of that at this time of year!

Hence:

At Christmas Time

Let the song be sung,
Let us all revere
The man who kept his manners
Throughout this time of year.

He said, “After you, excuse me,
No worries, not at all.”
No kicking other people’s children
When at the shopping mall.

So we make him immortal in music.
We celebrate his deeds in rhyme.
The man who was not a dick
At Christmas time.

Let the tale be told,
Let the bards relate
Of she who finished eating
With food upon her plate.
She said, “I am full, no really,
I’ve reached my Plimsoll line.”
A miracle, she called it quits at
Her second glass of wine.

So we make her immortal in music.
We celebrate her deeds in rhyme.
The girl who was not a pig
At Christmas time.

Was not a pig, (was not a pig),
Was not a dick, (was not a dick),
Was not a pig, (was not a pig),
Was not a fatty, fatty boomstick.
Guts, (was not a guts),
Was not a dick, (was not a dick),
Was not a guts, was not a dick, not a pig, was not a prick.

So let the shrines be built,
One for every spot
Where people bought things only
With money what they got.

Salute the folks who – just once -
Didn’t turn into a bunch of selfish …

And we make them immortal in music.
We celebrate their deeds in rhyme.
The people who were modest,well-mannered,
Who were happy
At Christmas time.

Incidentally, this is only in three parts, except for the final cadence.  It sounds like more than three because of the reverb and chorus effects lavished upon it.  It is Christmas, after all.

And We’ll Be Fine …

Many, many years ago I played piano at the Tilbury Hotel for a show of Kander and Ebb songs, performed by Jacqui Rae, called My Own Space.  Partly because the song is professionally written, and because Jacqui performed it so well, I didn’t realise at the time what a stunningly up-yourself number the title song was.  Is.

Once I’d heard Liza Minnelli’s version, from The Act, where the song originated, its impressive self-love became more apparent. But then, that entire show is one colossal ego-stroke.

What, I’ve wondered ever since, would be like to write my own version of this kind of song?  How would a man phrase such sentiments? A man who could never sing the result like Liza, and shouldn’t try?

Incidentally, this is the kind of cabaret song you shouldn’t pre-announce by its title.  ’Cos it’s the punchline.

Make Me Happy

Everybody hungers for the secret
Of a love that burns forever,
Of an eternal first kiss.
And all this time I think I’ve known the secret.
It’s simple, my darling, it’s this:

Make me happy.
Every time we wake
Let’s devote the day
To finding some new way to make me happy.

Since human life began,
No higher calling than
To make me happy.

You, you’re always saying
You need a purpose
And you do.
You, you need a purpose
And I need someone who

Can make me happy, happy.
Bend your dreams to mine.
Make me happy, my love,
And we’ll be fine.

Questions, little questions, you have questions yes, I know,
But watch this trick: three magic words,
and poof! There they go.

Make me happy,
For our future’s sake.
Life goes in a rush,
So tell yourself to shush
And make me happy.

Your wand’ring years are done,
Now you’re the lucky one
To make me happy.

You, you’re such a giver,
You’re there for others,
Staunch and true.
You, you’re there for others,
So I’ll be here for you

To make me happy, happy.
No joy more profound
Than to watch me from the ground.
Make me happy, my love,
Your turn to fly, my love,
Is maybe
Next time around.

MySoWriYe

I toyed at first with the idea of doing NaNoWriMo, but I felt all bandwagon-jumpy-onny.  I mean, you can only be an active dilettante in so many areas at a time, right?

Then I set to thinking what the equivalent of 50 000 words in a month would be for a songwriter.  And what would the equivalent of a novel be?  An album of original songs?  A double album?

Would it be a song a day?  A song a week?  For a year?  There are already plenty of bloggers posting song-a-week-for-a-year efforts. The ones I’ve encountered are more singer-songwriter than I. God bless and best of luck to them all, but that ain’t my thing.

So how’s this?  Over the next year, I will try to average one song per week.  Some weeks there’ll be nothing, and some weeks there’ll be more.  Some of the songs will be old ones resurrected, and others will be brand newies.  Some of the songs will be from ongoing music theatre projects, and others will be my usual stand-alone cabaret shtick.

To achieve this, I will need to:

• Avoid wine with dinner, except maybe on Fridays.
• And Wednesdays.  Wednesdays are hard.

Having not really promised anything definite, I’m pretty sure I can keep up my side of this bargain.

Time starts … now.

A Nice, Hummable 32-Bar Standard about Foreplay

I was waiting at the coffee window at Tilley’s, and heard this coming from the speaker above me:

something something bark
What a perfect something park
something no moon
would you like sugars with that?

How lovely, I thought. Someone has written a whole song about the quaint custom of necking in cars. That should have been me.  I must look it up when I get home.

So I did, and it was Doris Day doing No Moon At All, written by Redd Evans and Dave Mann.  It’s more of a celebration of darkness in general, and its value to kissing couples, and only mentions necking in cars very briefly:

Don’t make a sound, it’s so dark
Even Fido is afraid to bark
What a perfect chance to park
And there’s no moon at all

A-ha, I thought. So the whole song about parking is still fair game. And off I went and wrote one.

Evans and Mann were smart, because making the whole song about parking means you need rhymes for “park”, and if you are being traditional about these things (as I am), you can’t repeat a rhyme once you’ve used it.  That means, if you use “bark”, you can’t use “embark”, or “disembark”. This may sound fussy, but it’s how some great, great songs were written.  Seek what the masters sought and all that.

I picture this one being done late, maybe last in the set, by a woman – or man – with confidence, wit and a tempting neck:

Now, at the tail-end of the evening,
Might I make a casual remark?
It’s far too late to stay and much too soon to go home,
So let’s park
Ooh, baby, let’s park

You drive, I’ll provide the navigation,
But, Captain, before we embark,
The course I’ve charted has one little stop on the way:
Let’s park
Ooh, baby,

Right there, secluded and inviting,
Or there, where all the lights are low.
And there, there’s even lower lighting.
Hey, you talk a lot, and the time for talk
Was over long ago
So, baby,

Now, as this story’s resolution
Completes our emotional arc,
The mandatory high-point hasn’t happened, not quite,
And if a thing’s worth doing, I am worth doing right,
With just a little temperature, we two could ignite
A spark
Ooh, baby, let’s park

For an especially Aussie touch, check out the magpie in the background at about 1:06!

Never Sleeps/Doesn’t Sleep, Heap/Something Else

Fred Ebb was too much of a pro to do this:

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
To find I’m king of the hill, top of the heap

Fred Ebb knew that “sleeps” doesn’t rhyme with “heap”, so he wrote:

I want to wake up in the city that doesn’t sleep

The ”city that never sleeps” comes to mind more easily, probably because it was already an expression in 1977, when the Theme From New York, New York was written.  The City That Never Sleeps is, for starters, the 1953 film above - which I’ve never seen - set in New York.  The City That Never Sleeps is also a silent film from 1924 - which no-one has seen, apparently - and I don’t know which city provides its setting.

So if there was a ready-made expression lying around, why didn’t Ebb just use it, and put up with an extra “s”?  Because a Broadway writer (or at least, one of Ebb’s generation and craft) would develop an ulcer if he left superfluous un-rhyming letters lying about the place.

Liza Minnelli’s version, the first, leaves Ebb’s words as written at the climax:

… doesn’t sleep …
… king of the hill,
head of the list,
cream of the crop,
at the top of the heap …

Frank Sinatra’s recorded version, probably the best-known, has “doesn’t sleep” the first time, and then:

… nevers sleeps …
… A Number One,
top of the list,
king of the hill,
A Number One …

Ebb went on the record about not liking the “A Number One” line, although he acknowledged the big hit (and he was probably relieved that Sinatra didn’t mangle the sleep/heap rhyme).  Sinatra was, apart from adopting his usual cheery indifference to a written lyric, giving himself a better vowel for the long, drawn-out note, before the ”These little-town blues” that follows.

I don’t know what the Chairman of the Board was smoking before this live performance, but we get “the city that never sleeps” in the spoken word intro, followed by “doesn’t sleep” the first time, and then:

… doesn’t sleep
… I’m number one,
top of the list,
head of the heap,
king of the hill …

What?  Why set up the sleep/heap rhyme, and then non-rhyme with “hill”?  And since when does a heap have a head?

Steve Lawrence’s version:

… doesn’t sleep
… king of the hill,
head of the list,
cream of the crop,
on the top of the … list …

Now that’s just weird.  It sets up the rhyme correctly, heads off down Minnelli’s path, then changes a word, Sinatra-style, but changes it to a non-rhymer with a bad vowel. Crazy. 

This confusion is a gift to drunken karaoke singers.  You can now sing pretty much anything, and sound like somebody.

The Continuing Saga of Early Peter Allen Albums – Continental American (1975)

The front cover, with Allen looking pensively airbrushed and dear God, what is in that drink?

The back, showing the star attraction at Reno Sweeney’s in his native habitat.

1. Just a Gigolo (Schöner Gigolo) (Leonello Casucci-Irving Caesar)
The writing credits for this one, on the record itself, are to Leonello Casucci and Irving Caesar; and Caesar did adapt the original German lyric, by Julius Brammer, to the English version we all know.  But what if Brammer had used a German word for gigolo, rather than, well, ”gigolo”?  Is there a German word for gigolo?  In any case, things would have turned out differently.  Allen opens here with the rarely heard verse, and Caesar’s lyric reveals that the eponymous gigolo is French.  So why doesn’t he describe himself with the French word for gigolo? And what is the French word for gigolo?

Sung in that fashion popular throughout the 1970s (and indeed into the present): small, world-weary opening; key change, expansive vocal repeat; extended ending, highest note reserved for the last.

2. Everything Old Is New Again (Peter Allen/Carole Bayer-Sager)
“When trumpets were mellow, and every gal only had one fellow” – pure nostalgia-land.  Trumpets were consistently less mellow in the ’20s and ’30s, and no research indicates that women were more inclined to monogomy.

The very, very slick and cheesy female backing vocals were arranged, not by Cissy Houston – who did the rest of the album – but by “Linda November”.  Who?  Who is this skilful servant of the Dark Arts?  And who are the uncredited singers?  Are they all Cissy Houston?  Are they Linda November?  The whole thing is artfully arranged; the band comes in gradually throughout the song, and the strings don’t arrive until the key change chorus at the end. 

Bob Fosse chose, for All That Jazz, a much better and far less campy live version.  And oh my, Ann Reinking.  I need a lie-down.

3. The Natural Thing To Do (Peter Allen/Carole Bayer-Sager)
The Allen/Sager canon includes a great many songs that can be boiled down to this: I’m really selfish, baby, but that’s just how I am.  Hey, why are you leaving?

4. Pretty Pretty (Peter Allen – Hal Hackaday)
So far on these albums, every time Allen has teamed up with the lyricist Hal Hackady, the words have tightened up into something a little more crafted, with less free-association indulgence.  Which doesn’t mean the song isn’t dated and preachy; it’s a better-written, dated and preachy song: 

Twinkle twinkle
weekend star
How you wonder who you are
Down below the world’s so high
Like a rhinestone in the sky
Oh my.

These songs only work when the singer reveals, at the end, that she is the “pretty pretty” girl. And even then they don’t always work.

Hal Hackady would have been, at this point in his career, working on his more-or-less-flop Broadway musical Goodtime Charley, with composer Larry Grossman.  In 1972 he wrote the lyrics for a bigger flop, Ambassador (yes, a Henry James musical) with composer Don Gohman, who later committed suicide.  It’s a pity Hackaday didn’t use his hard-won experience to talk Peter Allen out of mounting a crap musical.  Maybe he tried. 

Oh, and the female lead in Goodtime Charley?  Ann Reinking.  Sweet, sweet Ann Reinking …

5. Continental American (Peter Allen/Carole Bayer Sager)
Someone had too many Barcardis at the pressing plant, and Bayer Sager is here listed on the record label as “Bayer Sayer”.  She remains so for the rest of the album’s credits.  Is this the first recorded attempt at ’60s nostalgia?  Was anyone else finding the ’70s a little conservative, in the straitlaced year of 1974?  This a better attempt at a longer song structure than the album’s later This Side Show’s Leaving Town.

Side 2

1. Just Ask Me I’ve Been There (Peter Allen)
First appeared three years earlier on the Tenterfield Saddler album, and in exactly the same spot.  This version has more backing, more singers, and it still refuses to take off.

2. I Honestly Love You (Peter Allen – Jeff Barry)
The opening chords are identical to those that will later begin the title track of I Could Have Been a Sailor!  Really, they are.  Am I the first to notice?  Is it deliberate?  What could it mean?

This oft-pilloried song (oft by Allen) is better than people think:  the singer really, really wants someone, but they’re both with another person, so it’s not going to happen.  He grabs the moment anyway and tells his never-to-be lover that he loves them.  There are far worse songs.  Curiously, this is billed on the actual record label as “I Love You, I Honestly Love You”, which, as titles go, would have been a bit much. 

3. This Side Show’s Leaving Town (Peter Allen – Carole Bayer Sager)
With the marching band opening and closing, fading in and fading out, this is trying to be a grand opus, the kind of extended pop song that mars many a Billy Joel album. ”Take me seriously,” the seven-and-a-half-minute duration says.  “I have something to say,” it says.  But the song, sandwiched between the grand intro and outro, is pretty mild:

Goodbye to the kid down the hall
He sure was fun
Been just like a daughter to me
That little one.

…

‘Cos hustlin’ is something I just can’t abide
Before we drown, and while we still got pride
This side show’s leavin’ town

And I can’t help but wonder: if Allen and Bayer Sager couldn’t abide hustling, why did they do so much of it, and get so good at it?  I want this song to be meaner.  Much meaner.

4. Just a Gigolo (Schöner Gigolo) (Reprise)
Frances Faye makes a welcome, tinkling appearance on a second piano, and contributes a yelping vocal in the background.  Much more fun than the first version, but it draws attention to how underpopulated the whole album is – only nine songs, one’s a repeat, and another’s from a previous album.