Musings of a Dinosaur

A Family Doctor in solo private practice; I may be going the way of the dinosaur, but I'm not dead yet.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

The Pitter Patter of Little Songs

Sid sent me a cute link in one of his comments, and it got me remembering how much I enjoyed the parody that his link parodied (reminding me of good times with both my father and my son.) So, since I'm still hip deep in NaNoWriMo (30,000 words to date) and don't have much time for blogging, I thought I'd do a post in which I follow the evolution of how a particular song that began as ridiculous morphed into outrageous, and thence to just plain silly.

It all started, as so much does, with Gilbert & Sullivan, a pair of seriously disturbed gentlemen who lived in England and wrote a series of operettas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of which contained at least one patter song. Here's one of several versions available on YouTube of the Modern Major General's song:

(For anyone who may have trouble following all the words, the lyrics are here.)



A while later, an even more seriously disturbed gentleman named Tom Lehrer wrote a completely pointless song in which he set the names of the chemical elements to the music of the above song. Again, one of several versions available on YouTube:



(This version, not available on YouTube, is also cute.)

And finally (thanks again, Sid) we have this, which you have to go click on to watch.

5 Comments:

At Sat Nov 17, 10:06:00 AM, Blogger Margaret Polaneczky, MD (aka TBTAM) said...

I think it was this movie where I completely fell in love with Kevin Kline. He is freakin' brilliant in that role!

(Of course, my one true love is Mr TBTAM...)

 
At Sat Nov 17, 01:15:00 PM, Blogger tk said...

I applaud your continued NaNoWriMo success . . . I was doing fine until I finally decided that mine was such crap that I couldn't bring myself to write another word! I'm ordering that novel writing program today . . . I learned a lot from the experience though, so I don't consider it a failure. I have much to learn about writing a novel.

 
At Sat Nov 17, 03:08:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OMG, what a coincidence! I just posted that very song on my blog yesterday, as a gift to all my friends in medschool who are now suffering from pharmacologitis with me...
I'm not sure if I've ever posted a comment here, but if I haven't before... great job! :)

PD: Have you listened to the "Anaesthetists Hymn" yet? Brilliant stuff.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xuZl9tRqjoQ

 
At Sat Nov 17, 04:40:00 PM, Blogger Sid Schwab said...

I'm glad to have brightened your day, even if it took you momentarily from your writing binge (which I admire but do not emulate.) I gave my wife the entire collected works of Tom Lehrer recently. And the high point of my generally lowly career in the performing arts was, I'd judge, playing Sir Joseph Porter, KCB. Not quite as challenging as the MMG, but still...

 
At Sat Nov 17, 09:12:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lately we have been laughing at the Colorectal surgeon Song

 

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