Song To Persecute You, A Private Joke Lyric For John Random, 9 July 1992

I have not often wondered precisely when it was that John Random took me to one side and explained the facts of NewsRevue song-writing life to me.

But my discovery of this little private joke lyric, dated 9 July 1992, is a piece of incontrovertible evidence. John must have taught me the facts of life a week or so before.

John explained to me that certain tunes were so over-used that NewsRevue aficionados would not consider their use under any circumstances. That was the reason, from his point of view, that, for example:

• my BCCI lyric, set to the tune of YMCA;
• my Mrs Thatcher lyric, set to the tune of I Will Survive…

…had not been used and would not be used on his watch.

Indeed, John said, he considered such lyrics, set to excessively-used tunes, to be a form of torture.

Chattanooga Choo-Choo was another notable example that John specifically mentioned as excessively used and torturous.

I had no recollection of the following little lyric at all, so it was a surprise to me when I discovered it. I must have written this specifically as a joke for John and (presumably) handed it to him at the NewsRevue writers’ meeting that week, on 9 July:

SONG TO PERSECUTE YOU

(To the tune of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”)

Pardon me John,

I wrote this song to persecute you;

Catch 22,

To edit the Newsrevue.

 

The public pay,

When they,

Can hear the tunes they know and like;

So Chattanooga Choo-Choo,

Shouldn’t always hit the spike.

 

Copyright 1992  “The Chattanooga Choo-Choo Liberation Front”.

Here is a great Glenn Miller vid of the song, although you don’t get any words for two or three minutes…but it is worth the wait:

…and here is a link to the original lyrics.