Glen Campbell Croons About the Current Political Debacle: "ROSENSTEIN"

POST #175:

Satire with Substituted Lyrics 

ORIGINAL SONG:  "Galveston", by Jimmy Webb, popularized by Glen Campbell, 1969.
Enjoy Campbell's great guitar solo here on Youtube. 

SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, April 2018.

SONGLINK: Readers interested in this topic might also enjoy post #173 "Brennan's Tweet", and post #158 "First Year on the Range".

WORDPLAY LINK: For those interested in wordplay, and not so much in satirical song, check out the latest post on our sister blog "Edifying Nonsense".

A link to info about the present debacle. 

http://www.newsweek.com/devin-nunes-impeach-rosenstein-wray-viewed-document-883499

ROSENSTEIN

(to the tune of "Galveston"

  

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General in the U.S. Department of justice, January 2017 to present.

Donald Trump, President.

Robert Mueller, Special Counsel, appointed by Rosenstein, May 2017, to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

James Comey, FBI Director, 2013-2017. His firing by Trump instigated Mueller's appointment as special counsel. His book "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership" was released May 1, 2018.

Jeff Sessions, U.S. Attorney General, appointed by Trump in 2016

Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer and fixer, implicated in the payment of hush funds to Daniels and others.

Stormy Daniels, porn film star and director, seeking relief from a non-disclosure agreement arranged by Cohen just prior to the election in 2016, in relation to her claim of a tryst with D.T. 

Steve Bannon, senior advisor to Donald Trump, formerly CEO of the alt-right outlet "Breitbart News"; filled the newly created position 'White House Chief Strategist' for 7 months until an apparent falling-out the President. 

Devin Nunes, Republican congressman from California since 2003; chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence 2015-2018; unrelenting Trump supporter. 

Paul Ryan, House Republican leader and Speaker, 2015-2018, who announced his pending resignation, putatively for family reasons, at the time of the initial furore over the search of Cohen's home and offices. 

UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT (and guitar, too!)

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

CM7 = 0002;  Eb = 0331;   Gm = 0231;  Bb = 3321.

SONGLINKS: Readers interested in this topic might also enjoy our songs found on previous postings on this song-blog. (Click to enjoy them).

 #194: "Vlad Putin's Blogger"  
 #193: "Get Me Roger Stone - the song" 
 #182: "Anagram-Lyrics for the Fourth of July"
 #180 "The Ballad of Rudy Giuliani, part #2"
 #179 "The Ballad of Rudy Giuliani, part #1"

 #178 "Indiana Song"

 #175 "Rosenstein"

 #173 "Brennan's Tweet"

 #169 "Dark Schemes (Russian Hacking)"

 #158 "First Year on the Range"

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS

(Click on any verse-box to enlarge, and compare the 2 versions of the song in thumbnail mode) 

WORDPLAY LINK: 

For wordplay (palindromes, anagrams, eggcorns, creative cartography, etc.) and silly poetry (polished limericks), see our sister blog "EDIFYING NONSENSE" here. 

A Tribute to Parodist AL SILVER: "I GET A KICK OUT OF ME"

AL SILVER,
Also known to this blog as Al+Ag+
Photo kindly provided by Vernon Silver

POST #174

Tribute and Reminiscence: AL SILVER, parodist

ORIGINAL SONG: "I Get A Kick Out of You" 1934, music and lyrics by Cole Porter, performed by Ethel Merman in the Broadway musical "Anything Goes"and many others. 

PARODY-LYRICS COMPOSED: By guest artist Al Silver, January 2013, copied here, with permission granted posthumously by Al's family.
 Al has been a frequent contributor to the AmIRight song-parody website.

BACKGROUND:
It was with dismay that I learned that good friend Al  had passed away in November 2017 due to cancer.
 Al and I became good e-friends while we were both contributors to AmIRight, a website that provides a vehicle for satirists to post parody-lyrics online. Al was a maven of words, turn-of-phrase, irony and satire, as established right at the start with his ingenious submissions. With his extensive knowledge of Broadway show music, he was a master at taking familiar old tunes and imbuing them with a new, and sometimes biting twist. The targets of his attack were prototype villains including hypocrites, racists, science-deniers and duplicitous politicians. Although his pieces were sometimes spurred by dismaying news of our everyday life, they were flawless in their lexical execution and timeless in their relevance. On the site, his cunning skill in linking language to music, and his insights into the historical and current value of satire made his contributions iconic examples of parody, an art for which he displayed a deep devotion. As a part of this dedication, he spent a lot of time reading submissions by other contributors, and commenting assiduously on how the site could be improved through honoring the standards set by our predecessors. Al was, for example, a great admirer of Cole Porter, the Gershwins and Irving Berlin.   
    

  As a result of our email communications, Al had agreed to let me repost some of his parody lyrics songs on my blogsite. BTW, in our email communications, Al became known to me by the nickname Al+Ag+(miming th chemi8cal symbols for aluminum and silver), so I still think of him that way. 

You can view Al's delightful lyrics shared at posts on this blogsite at:

post #25 Feb 2014  "Somewhere Dwelt the Designer"

post #100 Oct 2015  "Let's Do IT"

post #102 Oct 2015, "Zombies"

post #110 Nov 2015, "Whole Foods"

You can find a list by dates of songs by Al+Ag+ contributed to AmIRight, and links to all his lyrics by clicking here:

Al Silver.

SOME FURTHER BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION.

(kindly provided by Al's son):

Al, a lifetime New Yorker, was born in Brooklyn and a graduate of Stuyvesant High School and City College. An electrical engineer by profession, he found his true calling as a mostly unpublished writer and humorist, first in children's stories (when raising two kids largely on his own), then cartoons (the crucifixion was a recurring theme) and then song parodies (built around 20th century standards). He died in November 2017 a month after learning he had cancer. His children and grandchildren marked his passing with a singing of his "I Get a Kick Out of Me." ( link to AmIRight version)  Al was 83.

"I GET A KICK OUT OF ME", Al Silver

(to the tune of Cole Porter's "I Get A Kick out of You" - original lyrics shown in italics)

My story is such a joy to describe,
For I’m not the kind to live with a boisterous tribe.
The greatest of pleasures I’m known to embrace
Comes when I’m gaily on my own,
Near the mirror behind my throne,
That’s reflecting to me alone
My fabulous face.

My story is much too sad to be told
But practically everything leaves me totally cold
The only exception I know is the case
When I'm out on a quiet spree
Fighting vainly the old ennui
And I suddenly turn and see
Your fabulous face.

I get no kick from romance.
Yielding to love is one thing I’m above,
So tell me why shouldn’t it be
That I get a kick out of me?

I get no kick from champagne
Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all
So tell me why should it be true --
That I get a kick out of you.

Some folks give gambling a chance.
If I could grace ev’ry hand with an ace
I’d still keep my abrasive esprit;
‘Cause I get a kick out of me.


Some get a kick from cocaine
I'm sure that if I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrifically too,
Yet I get a kick out of you.

I get a kick when it’s clear that I
Am my devoted ally.
I get a kick when to me I sigh,
“I’m obviously such a good guy.”

I get a kick every time I see you standing there before me
I get a kick though its clear to me you obviously don't
Adore me.

I get no prick from Love’s lance.
Don’t miss the kisses
Of Mrs. Narcissus; if this is what bliss is, I flee.
Yes, I get a kick out of me.

I get no kick in a plane
Flying too high
With some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do.
Yet I get a kick out of you.

An Apocryphal Ballad: WALRUS and CARPENTER, Carolina Lowcountry Version

POST #173
Singable Eco-Satire

ORIGINAL SONG: For this post, we will use the melody for the verses of the 1960 hit written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin "Will You (Still) Love Me Tomorrow?". 
ORIGINAL POEM/STORY: "The Walrus and the Carpenter" is a poem recited by Tweedledum and Tweedledee to Alice in chapter 4 of Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, published in 1871.
SATIRE COMPOSED: The third verse of the satire-song was originally composed as a limerick based roughly on the Lewis Carroll poem and submitted to OEDILF, an online humour dictionary, by Giorgio Coniglio in January 2018. Giorgio subsequently expanded the poem to the current 6 verses, where it is published as a blogpost on our wordplay blog, "EDIFYING NONSENSE". 
Here, it is set it to the music of the Carole King song, with some minor changes in the lyrics to accomodate differences in scansion. Thanks are due to Steve McNie of Toronto Ukes, whose songbook provided the chord and lyrics slides for the original song. (As usual, you can find the chordchart verses for the original if you search carefully at the end of the post) .
SONGLINK:  We have undertaken the onerous task  of bringing you new melodies for singing limericks, as per the post "Novel Melodies for Singing Limericks". The melody of the King-Goffin tune was used as the vehicle for another recent post incorporating a collection of verses rendered to music "Singable Limerick Medley #26: From the Carolina Lowcountry"

Links to other parody-songs on this blogsite that deal with environmental issues are shown here: (target-songs for substitution in brackets)
Meat Consumption: "Pen of Rabbits" (Men of Harlech) post #17
Meat Consumption: "Dietary Notes" (Mairzy Dotes) post #97
Industrial Degradation: "View of Earth: Homage to Ed Burtynsky" (Book of Love)  post #54
Marine Plastic Contamination: "Polyvinyl for Millenia" (Carolina in the Morning)  post #59

'Ed, the Egret'
Shem Creek Pier
Mt Pleasant SC, January 2019.  

Global Warming: "The Climate Cynic's Song" (The Christmas Song) post #56
Deforestation: "Trees, Updated" (Trees) post #93  

WALRUS AND CARPENTER 

(Carolina Lowcountry Version)

(to the tune of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?")

The sun in December shone brightly

On the beach and the marsh day and nightly;

Asked the Walrus with dread,                   

“Foul our oyster-friends’ bed?”

Sobbed the Carpenter, "They can't do that rightly." 

"What to think of this vista of pluff-mud?

If you stand there you'll sink; it's not tough mud.

Seven maids, seven mops,

They clearly would be flops."

Moped the Walrus, "There's not nearly enough mud."

"Great environment! What could be finer

Than the pluff-mud of South Carolina?

For you oysters, I mean." 

(Voiced with appetite keen)

"See you later at Bill's Seafood Diner."

"They disgust almost all girls and boysters; 

Jews must shun them, I trust, but not goysters.

Coastal feast I love most

Is that Lowcountry Roast

Where they shovel up clusters of oysters."

The Carpenter claimed, "I'm unwilling

To condone any offshore oil drilling.

If my home were the marsh,

You can bet I would be harsh

Over every small droplet they're spilling."

The sun in December shone brightly

On the billows (that's odd!) day and nightly;

When the Carpenter pled,                   

“Please don't foul that oyster bed.”

Sobbed the Walrus, "They can't do that rightly." 

UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT (and guitar, too!)

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

Specifics for C-tune uke:
Dm7 = 2213;  E7 = 1202;  E7+5 = 1203;  As4= 2200;  Csus = Cs4 = 0013 

For a better understanding of "pluff mud" see the photos accompanying the related limerick verses here.

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS

(click on any verse to enlarge and compare the original and the parody-version)

Blog Summary: CENSUS of SONGS and NONSENSE, by TOPIC

Post #172
SUMMARY OF BLOG CONTENT: Slides showing...
  New versions of old songs; substituted lyrics for old favorites with a range from parody to info-songs and personal experiences. These songs arranged by topic primarily for the years 2013 through 2017. Updates for following years will be added depending on the editors' health and inclinations.
  Further offerings for both song-lyrics and wordplay blog are in the offing; summaries of these will be arranged sequentially by season. These will be posted eventually and dated for the last day of each calendar year, i.e. Dec 31. 


Note: The blog is searchable via the Searchline at the top of each post - to find a particular title, topic or artist. But beware! the content of each slide in this summary may be hidden from the blog's search engine. 
To quickly find a particular post/song from the table below, just find the search widget at the top of each post, and enter the pound sign followed by the post-number in the search line, e.g. #116 for "Prostate Cancer".  

Seasonal Summaries: 

WINTER 2018

HOTLINKS
Coastal Carolina
Icelandic Saga
Robbie Burns Day
Online Etymology Help
Vancouver's Isle
Pisa's Lean Trattoria
Verse!
Dark Schemes
Broken Arrows
Brennan's Tweet

HOTLINKS: To review these posts,which include creative cartography based on anagrams and palindromes, start with #106, and work your way backword or forward using the buttons labelled "OLDERPOST", "NEWER POST" near the bottom of each blog.

HOTLINKS (and from there, you can navigate  using the buttons "Newer Post" and "Older Post" near the bottom of each blogpost, or by searching with the help of the Search-widget at the upper right hand corner.

Auld Lang's Sine, trig. tale

Hearse Verse

Reversing Verse: Palindromes