o) The Modern Hamlet Monologue, Scene ii: "THE PLAY'S A STING"

PARODY-LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG: "The Major General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance". 
LYRICS: modified from W. Shakespeare "Hamlet (Prince of Denmark)"; the soliloquy "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I"
Notes to the Lyrics: The lines sung by MG Stanley and by the Chorus generally exhibit the 3-syllable rhyming which has come to characterize the original and parodies of the "Major General's Song". In the present circumstance, neither the MG or I was able to convince the Prince of Denmark to use a rhyming convention adopted by British naval officers several centuries later; his lines here have only single-syllable rhyming, and are therfore similar to Tom Lehrer's accessible version used in the song "The Elements" .

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, April 2013, a sequel to the song, "Modern Major General" posted HERE in May 2014.   

THE PLAY'S A STING

(to the tune of "TheMajor-General's Song") 

(Maj. Gen. Stanley)

     G

As proudly demonstrated in my proof-of-concept parody*,

   D7 
Iambic harmonizing with Will Shakespeare’s lines has meritry

       G
For modern adaptations, costumed uniformly or bespoke,

        D                                       A7                D  
And at your local bar for Open-Mike or tokey karaok’.

     D7                                                          Gm

To cite just one example from a spectacle eponymous,

      F7                                                        Bb 
Protagonizing recitation of his pond’rings ominous         
D7                                                                                  Gm 

Gives Hamlet back-row status, when upstaged by old Polonius 

           Eb7                                                                 D7 

Who’s scatting catchy melodies by Brubeck and Thelonious.

(Hamlet)

      G 

So now I am alone. O what a rogue and peasant slave I am !

    D7   

Is it not monstrous that this player here got Heckie in a jam ?

     G
He feigns tears in his eyes, a broken voice and passioned sympathy,   

        D                                               A7                  D               

Full-knowing that she’s going to pursue him for paternity.

      D7                                                                   Gm                   
Yet I, unpregnant of my cause, a muddy-mettled rascal, peak,

F7                                                                                           Bb 

And I say nothing when my throat is burned or when my nose is tweaked;    
   D7                                                            Gm 

Amazed indeed the very faculties of Eyes and ENT –   
  Eb7                                                                 D7 

I protest not defeat of most dear life and royal property.

    G 
I, prompted to revenge with both the motive and my passion’s cues

            D7   
Should far out-kvetch the actor cleaving ears with his Hecuba-blues,

        G 
And so I fall a-cursing, but keep watch for ghost-like devils loose – 

     D                                                       A7                      D 
Unpack my heart with words about the square of the hypotenuse !

        D7                                                                       Gm 
I’ve heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have been soul-struck 

     F7                                                                           Bb       
By very cunning scenes, so un-tongued malefactions get unstuck;

      D7                                                                                   Gm 
I’ll have these players voice their prose and check after the mustering

    Eb7                                                                                  D7 
If C. should blench or leave to pee on viewing bros’ ghost-bustering.

(Chorus)

       G                   D7                      G            D7                  
Ear-poison rerun in our skit might irritate a kingly snit:

       G                           C                      G        D7      G   
The play’s a sting wherein we’ll finger Claudius the Illegit.

(MajGen Stanley)

       G                                                    

The seating for such theatre-shorts, and photo-ops we should confirm,

        D7 
With front-row tickets organized by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

         G                  D7                    G                          D7               
With such a crazy family I’ll have grounds more relative than bunk;

        G                                C                      G                D7     G    
The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of my sleazy Unc.

(Chorus)

       G                   D7                      G            D7                  
Ear-poison rerun in our skit might irritate a kingly snit:

       G                           C                      G        D7      G   
The play’s a sting wherein we’ll finger Claudius the Illegit.

(MajGen Stanley)

      G                   D7                         G           D7       
Let Branagh vocalize whole-hog, in digital or analog,

     G                           C                      G        D7      G  

My Sing-Along Soliloquy’s the Modern Hamlet Monologue. 

(Chorus)

           G                        D7                                  G                       D7       
We’ve kissed the lips of Prince and Frog **, and now it's posted on a blog,

      G                       C                                      G           D7       G  

"O! What a peasant slave and rogue.."  -  the Modern Hamlet Monologue.

* The Modern Hamlet Monologue, posted on this site May 2014.

**A planned but unproduced episode of the Muppet Show was entitled “Kermit, Prince of Denmark”.

PlayingNotes: Eb7 is easily fingered by using the barred version of D7, up the neck 1 position.

Uke-Song: John Denver's "INDIANA SONG", as sung by columnist George Will

Satire with Substituted Lyrics, (also, published limericks on this topic are cited later in the blogpost).

ORIGINAL SONG:  "Annie's Song" by John Denver, 1974.
Enjoy Denver's recording here on Youtube. 

SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, May 2018. To see the lyrics displayed more concisely without the chord-indications (and to return to the corresponding date's post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense"), click HERE. 

SONGLINK: Readers interested in this topic might also enjoy Giorgio's songs on these earlier blogposts:   "Rosenstein", "Brennan's Tweet", "First Year on the Range".

BACKGROUND INFO: George Will's opinion-editorial  was published in the Washington Post under the rubric "Trump is no longer the worst person in government". It appeared in our local newspaper on May 10, 2018, under the heading "Mike Pence sets sad standard for governing by groveling."

Here is the link to the particular newspaper column which generated all the interest.

INDIANA SONG

to the tune of "Annie's Song"

  

CAST OF CHARACTERS

George Will  'conservative political commentator' and popular columnist with the Washington Post Writer's Group.
Mike Pence  Vice-President 2017- . Previous experience as Republican governor of his home-state of Indiana. Described as 'conspicuously devout' by Will, presumably picked for his current post due to his freedom from financial or lifestyle imbroglios. 

"Sheriff Joe" Arpaio   controversial local political figure in Arizona, self-styled as 'America's toughest sheriff', convicted of contempt of court in relation to repeated racially charged practices, 'pardoned' by Trump in 2017.

John McCain   high-profile long-serving senator from Arizona, Republican candidate for President in 2008, struggling with terminal brain cancer at the time of these events.

UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT (and guitar, too, perhaps with a capo!)

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

Specifics for C-tuned ukulele:
F = 2010;  Fsus4 = 2011;  Bb = 3211; Dm = 2210; FM7 = 5500 or 2410;
F6 = 2213; Am = 2000;  Gm = 0231.  

LIMERICKS about the CAST OF CHARACTERS

A: LIMERICKS POSTED ONLINE at ...      OEDILF.com 

Authors of verses are shown here in italics.

Once you've entered the site, find the verse you want by scrolling down a bit and entering the WORD USED (e.g. Arpaio), or the LIMERICK APPROVED (e.g. 100807). 

Mike Pence 

#99721 (2016) Len Farano  ' " Apologize!" tweeted the man. '

Joe Arpaio

#99153 (2017) MikeAq   ' You ask, "Why, why-o-why, why-o-why-o ' 

#100807 (2018) Len Farano  ' The judgment against you was gross '

#T471743 (2018) Workshop ' Though Trump's base found the concept beguiling '

John McCain 

#96387 (2016) MikeAq ' "The crazies," remarked John McCain '

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS

LImerick-Uke-Saga: "AGAIN and AGAIN" -- echoic binomials

A SINGABLE SAGA, derived from limerick lyrics.

ORIGINAL SONG: For this post, we will use the melody for the verses of the 1960 hit composed by Carole King and Gerry Goffin "Will You (Still) Love Me Tomorrow?".


POETRY-LYRICS: The poetry was originally developed as a series of limerick verse submitted to OEDILF, an online humour dictionary, by Giorgio Coniglio in 2020. Giorgio has been interested in the word-music provided by binomial expressions, a grammatical device that is widely used in English-language idioms, but not often discussed as a grammatical entity. Giorgio now has about twenty short poems that explain and exemplify these paired phrases on the OEDILF website, and we have been glad to display those individually on our blog "DAILY ILLUSTRATED NONSENSE", and collected in groups of eight poems on our blog  "EDIFYING NONSENSE". The poem in question can be found HERE.

BACGROUND INFORMATION: This verse deals with a particular type of common binomial phrase that strangely represents a sort of "nul set". Rather than two paired words (homonyms, members of a group, or opposites), these phrases repeat the same word joined by a relevant joining word (usually a conjunction), in mimicry of other paired phrases. Therefore it seems best for the novice to read about the various types of binomials in a topic-based collections on our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". We hope that you will get the idea little by little. Click HERE.

PARODY-SONG: In this post, the words of the poetic explanation and exemplification of echoic binomials are set it to the music of the Carole King song, with some minor changes in the lyrics to accommodate differences in scansion. Also, importantly, a bridge was developed. Thanks are due to Steve McNie of Toronto Ukes, whose songbook provided the chord and lyrics slides for the original song. Note that another parody song on our site, "Walrus and Carpenter, lowcountry version") has also been pinned to the same melody.

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

AGAIN and AGAIN

(parody-lyrics by Giorgio Coniglio based on "Will You Still Love Me  Tomorrow?") 

ORIGINAL SONG CHORD-CHARTS

(click on any chord-chart to go to scroll through the thumbnails)