I don’t recall seeing this one performed, but it might have been used. The perennial problem of the car industry in the UK; this news item was one of many chapters in that tale.
_ KARAOKE HONDA _
(To the Tune of “Without You”)
HONDA EXECUTIVE:Excuse me. Is this the Rover plant Karaoke bar?
BARMAN (PIANIST):Certainly squire. That’ll be 50p for the video Karaoke machine.
(The Honda executive pays. The pianist strikes up the tune. The Honda executive takes up the microphone. Two members of the cast then meander around the stage throughout the song, looking into each other’s eyes and shining torches along pieces of cardboard, inscribed with large Japanese-like characters).
VERSE 1 – HONDA EXECUTIVE
Well I can’t believe it’s over, our relationship with Rover,
But I guess it’s just the way the Tories go;
We motorised your dismal lines when they ran slow, they ran slow.
We were both rolling in clover, on the back of your Land Rover,
But your German deal sucks more than you could know,
And now we’re pulling out our engines, your autos might cease to go.
CHORUS 1 – HONDA EXECUTIVE
We lost face to frigging BMW, Aerospace are a bunch of old tarts,
We won’t live in trade with BMW, we won’t give those kraut bastards our parts.
VERSE 2 – BMW EXECUTIVE
(One of the meanderers takes the microphone from the Honda executive. The Honda executive becomes a meanderer, staring longingly into the eyes of the other meanderer. The pieces of cardboard, reversed/transposed, now show German-like characters. The BMW executive has a “Stage-German” accent)
We just can’t believe you’re fonder of your car trade owned by Honda,
Than the thought that UK firms are German owned,
For all those years your British cars were not your own, they’d been cloned.
CHORUS 2 – BMW EXECUTIVE
We can deal without a civic Honda, it’s a steal without Honda accord,
It’s a pup this industry you squandered, this makes up for the second world war, haw haw.
Below is Harry Nilsson singing Without You with lyrics on’t screen.