Thursday, June 28, 2007
Unhappy souls
I referred to a song lyric yesterday and rare reader CGHill pointed out that I attributed it to the wrong writer. In fact "and I don't like anybody very much" is from "The Merry Little Minuet" by Sheldon Harnick who wrote the lyrics to some very important musicals (Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me and Umbrellas of Cherbourg, among them). Interestingly, Wikipedia mentions that this song "is in the caustic style usually associated with Tom Lehrer and is sometimes incorrectly attributed to him" and apparently Lehrer performed it with the Kingston Trio (who went on to have a big hit with it) and on his own, which adds to the association. Anyway, the lyrics are so apt that I have to reprint them:
They're rioting in Africa.
They're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida,
And Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs
South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like anybody very much.
 
In far away Siberia
They freeze by the score
An avalanche in Switzerland
Just got fifteen more.

But we can be tranquil
And thankful and proud
For man's been endowed
With a mushroom shaped cloud.
And we know for certain
That some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.
Can you tell when this was written? Except for the mushroom cloud reference, it's scarily identical to what would work right now.

Labels: ,

Permalink | | posted by jau at 9:24 AM


3 more:
Anonymous Anonymous — at 8:43 AM, June 29, 2007:
By "rare," I assume you mean "not well done." :)
 

< home >

Blogger jau — at 9:11 AM, June 29, 2007:
But of course.
 

< home >

Blogger Dick Stanley — at 1:51 AM, July 02, 2007:
Tom Lehr, an old fav of mine, in the early 60s. I like his bullfight song best. Excerpt: "The crowd held its breath, hoping that death, would brighten an otherwise dull afternoon..."
 

< home >


Post a Comment

< home