Uke-Song: "DOWNSIDE, NOW", an ecologic lament, as might be sung by Joni Mitchell

PARODY LYRICS 

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "Both Sides Now" is a ballad by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Included in her album "Clouds" in 1969, it became one of her best-known hits. The song had been released as a single two years earlier, and was recorded by Judy Collins, then Celine Dion, and many others.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, September 2024, performed at the Ukes of York ukulele jam, October 2025. 

Our whole series of songs can be found in a friendly format for ukulele (and guitar)-players here on "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE" with chord-charts for both the parody and original song, as well as helpful performing suggestions. 

 To  return to the corresponding post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" (and to see the lyrics without the slides or chord-chart indications) click HERE.  

 

 DOWNSIDE, NOW

(to the tune of "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell)

Moles and voles arrange their lairs -- they cope with heat-waves, as do hares, 
And suffer summer's sultry air, in tunnels where they stay.
But now their favorite food's in doubt -- the worms in berms just won't come out
(Worms stay down deep, avoiding drought, so moles can't eat their prey).

Moles checked out soil from up and down,
They're moving north, and leaving town;
It's soil's hydration that they sense.
(I note all this in moles' defence)

Whales and seals and swarms of eels: aquatic creatures -- none conceals
In lakes and seas, how lost they feel, our weekly poll reveals.
They're now upset about their seas (defiled by plastic vortices)
So, near the shore, they ask you please, "Don't toss your trash away."

Our time on Earth, like theirs, is thin:
An oceanic garbage bin
Sums up the dreadful state we're in.
Our leaders are like "clowns sent in".

Flocks of auks and human fools reject the science learned in schools.
To fix the sitch we lack the tools, no cooling's underway.
So, blame the universities -- they study eco-travesties,
And halt research with funding freeze, denial games to play.

Like moles, we have vestigial eyes -- 
Our autocratic gang denies
(And lies with self-delusion strange),
Earth's deadly outlook -- climate change. 

(Editors' Note: Additional information is available for readers in our illustrated poems about "drought", the "great auk", (an extinct bird species), "global warming", and "too hot to hoot").

slide showing author’s verse published online at “Daily Illustrated Nonsense”

WHAT NOW?

Choice #1: To leave a comment, click on the comment-'widget' at the bottom of this page (or, if that fails, find an alternate e-mail on "pages").

Choice #2: To find another song-parody, use the listings on the web-version by reverse date in the clickable 'Blog-Archive' at the top of the right-hand column.

Choice #3: To return to our broad-spectrum blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE.

Choice #4 (optional): If you found this stuff to be compellingly entertaining or educational, send a cheque/check. 

If you aren't on the 'web-version', you can get there by clicking that choice ('view web-version') at the very bottom of this blog-page!

o) Uke-Song: "PALINDROMES of EVIL" -- Simon and Garfunkel's implanted vision

PARODY LYRICS with UKULELE CHORDS

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "The Sounds of Silence" 1964, Simon and Garfunkel. 

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, April 2016.

PARODY-LYRICS LINK: To return to the corresponding post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" (and to view the lyrics without the chord-chart indications) click HERE. 

 

 

PALINDROMES OF EVIL

(to the tune of "The Sounds of Silence")      


Performing Notes

Fadd9 = 0013; Asus2 = 2200; Gadd9 = 2232

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS (W-I-P)
Click on any chord chart to enlarge and enter thumbnail mode (the slides for both the parody and the original versions can then be enlarged and viewed in any order). 
Readers are asked to honour the original artists' creativity, and to use the slides of the original song-lyrics only to ensure familiarity with the suggested style for the spoof version.

 

WHAT NOW?

Choice #1: To leave a comment, click on the comment-'widget' at the bottom of this page (or, if that fails, find an alternate e-mail on "pages").

Choice #2: To find another song-parody, use the listings on the web-version by reverse date in the clickable 'Blog-Archive' at the top of the right-hand column.

Choice #3: To return to our broad-spectrum blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE.

If you aren't on the 'web-version', you can get there by clicking that choice ('view web-version') at the very bottom of this blog-page!

Uke-Saga: "FLUORIDATION"

UKE-SAGA, a singable poem derived from lyrics of a multi-verse limerick.

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: The verses of this 15-line poetic saga can be sung to "The Limerick Song", as per YouTube HERE.

ORIGINAL POETRY LYRICS: Original verses were composed by registered pseudonym Giorgio Coniglio in 2019. After undergoing their rigorous collaborative editing process, these have been published as a "brief saga", a poetic entity of three or more stanzas, on the poetry website OEDILF, the Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form; they have then been displayed as poetry lyrics on our blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense". Click HERE to review Giorgio's blogged poem.

SETTING WORDS TO MUSIC: Readers might be interested to know that of more than 1000 short poems that we have published, only 50 or so would qualify, based on their format and length, as "brief sagas". Although almost any limerick verse (e.g. the "Nantucket limericks") can be set to music, we were particularly interested in exploring this transitioning for these multiverse poems that warrant the time to pick up your ukulele.

The tunes we have exploited in this effort include, not surprisingly "The Limerick Song", a vehicle we have used today. But on occasion we have also used (minor modifications may be required) the songs "Up" (Shania Twain), "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?", "The Anniversary Song", "Summertime", "We Three Kings" and "Santa Lucia".

PARODY-LINKS: We regret that to date we have no other posted songs dealing with dental issues. But you could check out Giorgio's collected series of limerick poems on another eight of these topics, collected for your convenience in "Dental Feelings", a post on our encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". AND, please bear in mind, that all of these limerick-based songs could be easily sung to the same simple tune, especially after your experience on this post with "Fluoridation". So keep ukulele, guitar, or other stringed instruments at hand, and click HERE.

first stanza:/ A preventable scourge that is florid:/ Dental caries strikes kids, and it’s horrid,/ Due to sugary diet./ “Fluoridation let’s try it./ What ensued? A debate that was torrid.

second stanza:/ Some detractors invoked a weird theory/ Every rational person would query./ “Evil Soviets try/ Via water-supply/ To poison our brains. Let/s be leery.

third stanza:/ As a child I enjoyed every treat,/ Such as kids’ breakfast cereal. Sweet!/ In old age I’ve still got/ Wits and teeth, not a lot/ But the Soviets went down in defeat.

 

WHAT NOW?

Choice #1: To leave a comment, click on the comment-'widget' at the bottom of this page (or, if that fails, find an alternate e-mail on "pages").

Choice #2: To find another song-parody, use the listings on the web-version by reverse date in the clickable 'Blog-Archive' at the top of the right-hand column.

Choice #3: To return to our broad-spectrum blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE.

Choice #4 (optional): If you found this stuff to be compellingly entertaining or educational, send a cheque/check. 

If you aren't on the 'web-version', you can get there by clicking that choice ('view web-version') at the very bottom of this blog-page!

Uke-Song: "NARY AN ELEMENT", an elegy to incomparable satirist Tom Lehrer

PARODY-LYRICS with UKULELE CHORD INDICATIONS


MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "The Elements", Tom Lehrer, 1959.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, 2013. A decade later, it might be worthwhile to review these lyrics again.

Please note that T.L.'s genius has provided inspiration for a handful of other parody patter-songs; these are summarized at the bottom of this post.


EXPLANATION: Lehrer had adapted the tune from "The Major General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance". There are 3 somewhat different melodies/chord-sequences used in alteration through the GandS song, and in Lehrer's derived spoof.

PARODY-LYRICS LINK: The lyrics for this song constituted one of Giorgio's earliest submissions to the online parody-lyrics website at AmIRight.com. 

To return to our blogsite "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE.

NARY AN ELEMENT

(to the tune of Tom Lehrer's "The Elements")

most names for elements are
 neutral Latin nouns

the Roman empire included England

  


      




 

UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT
(Click on any chord-chart slide to move to 'song-presentation mode'; then navigate through thumbnails at bottom of page.)

(My suggestion for the first 3 verses of the patter-list portion of this parody are shown here, but adapt them as you like! Incidentally, the Eb7 chord may look formidable to some - just use the barred version of D7 one fret higher, than slide back for the D7 that follows!)

Singable Introduction

The Patter-Song Lyrics:

Addendum #1

To [G]plural them, heads [D7]swirling them, “What [G]single rule? - please [D7]answer, Pa”.

My [G]dictum, “Don’t in[C]flict ‘em with [G]erratums [D7]or chry[G]santhema !”

Addendum #2 (optional)
There's [G]stratum, alum, [D7]allium, al[G]luvium et [D7]alia,
And [G]mom's pouch called mar[C]supium, but [G]mostly [D7]in Aus[G]tralia.

Singable Introduction:
Tom Lehrer became a legend with his scientific patter-song,
More popular and loved than his unpublished “Anti-Matter Song”;
Enhancing humdrum discourse, just to quote his ode lends elegance
To conversation thrumming with the spectrum of the Elements.

We face this glum conundrum as alumni of Philology:
Lay-folk would like a list replete with Latin etymology
The possibilities for neutral nouns in -U-M loom awesome;
No need to invoke hokum terms like tantrum or opossum, chum.

Patter-Song Lyrics:
There’s atrium, asylum, arboretum, auditorium
Compendium and modicum and rostrum, crematorium
And coliseum, quantum, condominium, euphonium
And album, acetabulum, museum, pandemonium.

There’s maximum and minimum and optimum and medium
And opium, opprobrium, colloquium and tedium
Colostrum, serum, sputum, sebum, labium, meconium
And sternum, talcum, ovum, nostrum, and spermatogonium.

Caladium, nasturtium and laburnum and geranium
And sacrum, c(a)ecum, ischium and tympanum and cranium
Consortium, memorandum, and symposium and podium
And duodenum, datum, vacuum, ultimatum, odium.

There’s pablum, perineum, paramecium, petroleum
And locum and inoculum, lyceum and linoleum
And tritium, deuterium, trapezium and trillium
Mycelium, flagellum, endothelium and cilium.

There’s quorum and decorum, mausoleum, moratorium
And premium, per-annum, honorarium, emporium
And pendulum and forum, fulcrum, speculum, bacterium
And cerebellum, plenum, sum, curriculum, delirium.

Gymnasium and stadium and magnum and terrarium
Solarium, momentum, myocardium, aquarium
And scrotum and factotum and postpartum and continuum
And spectrum, referendum, rectum and … (What’s left?) residuum.

Addendum #1
To plural them, heads swirling them, “What single rule? — please answer, Pa”.
My dictum, “Don’t inflict ’em with erratums or chrysanthema !”

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS
Click on any chord chart to enlarge and enter thumbnail mode (the slides for both the parody and the original versions can then be enlarged and viewed in any order). 
Readers are asked to honour the original artists' creativity, and to use the slides of the original song-lyrics only to ensure familiarity with the suggested style for the spoof version. 

You crave more patter-songs in the style of Tom Lehrer???
T.L. inspired a whole platterful of songs related to our interest in (i) grammatically paired words, including binomials and reduplications, and (ii) Latin loanwords. And, you should have your foot in the door, having mastered the complexities of singing and playing our above offering "Alliterative Binomials".  So, enjoy singing and playing these as well !!!     
1a. "Alliterative Binomials, part#1"

1b. "Alliterative Binomials, part#2"

2a. "Rhyming Binomials, part#1"

2b. "Rhyming Binomials, part#2"

3.  "A Lesson about Reduplications" (not a patter-song)

4a. "Reduplications, part#1"

4b. "Reduplications, part#2",

5.  ("No Elements", 3rd declension Latin nouns)

6.  "The Uniqueness of Nuclear", Latin adjectival listing

of the original songs in our parody suite about word-pairs,
7/9 pay tribute to the work of Tom Lehrer

WHAT NOW?

Choice #1: To leave a comment, click on the comment-'widget' at the bottom of this page (or, if that fails, find an alternate e-mail on "pages").

Choice #2: To find another song-parody, use the listings on the web-version by reverse date in the clickable 'Blog-Archive' at the top of the right-hand column.

Choice #3: To return to our broad-spectrum blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE.

Choice #4 (optional): If you found this stuff to be compellingly entertaining or educational, send a cheque/check. 

If you aren't on the 'web-version', you can get there by clicking that choice ('view web-version') at the very bottom of this blog-page!

Related Palindromes:  (Latin examples found at Auxilium: Palindroma) 

There seem to be no published examples of phrases based on the  neutral nouns !!! 

Ave, Eva.  (Hail, Eve !)

Sum summus mus. (I am the top mouse)

Et tiger non regit te.  (And the tiger doesn't rule thee).

Aures serua.  (Safeguard your ears).

Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas. (The famous  "Sator Square" - can be read either horizontally or vertically)  

Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor. (In Rome, love will go to you suddenly)

 few English words ending in -UM
 are not of Latin origin