Tag: Canal Cafe Theatre

It doesn’t make sense for NewsRevue, this one, but by gosh it does make sense for me to play with it now (May 2017) as a practice/performance piece on my baritone ukuleles.

I republished it unchanged as The Woodstock Revival Song in October 1994 but I don’t think anyone picked up on it that time either.

I rather like it, mainly because I always disliked “A Horse With No Name” and the feeble attempts of non-talented guitar players to render both of its chords.  As I said, ideally suited for me to try out new techniques on my ukes.

A SONG WITH NO TUNE 

(To the Tune of “A Horse With No Name”)

 

(The singer’s voice should start to show strain from the middle of VERSE 2 onwards)

 

VERSE 1

 

In my first gig out in Bethel,

I was hoping the crowd was alive;

There were heads and hawks and hogs and freaks,

There for Woodstock to revive.

 

The first thing I played was a chord name of E,

And the second note was an E;

For the third chord, I thought I’d try me an E,

On the fourth I freaked out with an E.

 

CHORUS 1

 

I’m giving a concert with a song with no tune,

It’s so good to get out here and croon;

If you remember, it has no words either soon,

And the la las’ll send the crowd right over the moon;

La la, la la la la, la la la, la la;

(Wow-harmony) La la, la la la, la la la, la la;

 

VERSE 2

 

After two days in the Bethel rain,

My songs were sounding like Bread;

After three days, my throat is in so much pain,

I sound like Crosby Stills and Nash instead;

And the stories I told made them realise I’m old,

And the crowd wished that I was dead.

 

CHORUS 2

 

You see I’m giving a concert with a song with no range,

It’s so good to be out on the stage;

The lack of lyrics may appear to be strange,

But you can’t recall much when you get to my age;

La la, la la la la, la la la, la la;

(All together now) La la, la la la la, la la la, la la; (Key change….

….no only kidding) La la, la la la la, la la la, la la.

Here is America singing A Horse With No Name with lyrics up on the screen:

 

I normally left sport stories to the experts – we had several of those on the writing team for NewsRevue. But clearly I wanted to vent my spleen about Wimbledon ahead of time:

_ THE WIMBLEDON SONG _

(To the Tune of “The Wombling Song”)

CHORUS 1

Underdogs, over hyped,
Weak as gnats pee;
The weaklings of Wimbledon fortnight are we.
Tho’ we are English and on our home ground,
We’re over the moon if we reach the third round.

MIDDLE EIGHT 1

Auntie Virginia,
Can remember the days when we didn’t lose all the time,
(A very long time ago),
We’re ineffectual,
Cos our arms are weak and legs are slow.

CHORUS 2

Under stress, overpaid,
Tennis starlets;
The new breed of champions are space cadets;
They are clean cut and incredibly fit,
They don’t lose their tempers, they’re boring as shit.

MIDDLE EIGHT 2

Poor little Jennifer,
Capriati says that she wants to be like normal kids,
So she smokes crack, smack and dope;
England’s team should follow suit,
Except they should take speed and cortisone (and testosterone).

CHORUS 3

Under brollys, overcharged,
Crazed devotees,
The Wimbledon crowd are a bunch of loonies;
They pay five quid for a strawberry or ten,
Do Mexican waves and bring them all back again (blagggghhhh).

In 1997 I tried again with this lyric, changing only the second Middle Eight:

MIDDLE EIGHT 2
Tim Henman mania,
Anybody would think the poor bastard stands half a chance,
To stick around ’til week two;
English players could always win,
It’s just that they have better things to do.

Below is a video of The Wombles singing The Wombling Song:

Here is a link to the lyrics of that great piece, The Wombling Song.

I don’t think this one was used much, if at all. Sketches were not my strongest suit.

RABIES THREAT (A Sketch for fox, rat and Rabbi Lionel Blue. Fox and rat have stage French accents)

RAT:Bonjour, fox. What are you doing here in the channel tunnel? (Salivates wildly.)
FOX:Comment ca va, rat? I am going across to Britain of course. (Also salivates wildly).
RAT:But you must be crazy. There is no cheep booze to be bought over there. And besides, the English are paranoid about le rabies. They will shoot you before you can say Jacques Chirac. (Salivates wildly.)
FOX:OK, Monsieur smarty pants. If you are so damned clever, what are you doing here in a thirty five mile long tunnel, laced with rat poison and with not so much as a single scrap of Camembert? (Salivates etc….)
(But before rat can reply, Rabbi Lionel Blue appears on the stage)
RAT:Sacre bleu!! Who is this weirdo coming along the tunnel?
FOX:Vraiment bleu!! C’est Rabbi Lionel Bleu.
BLUE:Good morning, fox. Good morning rat. Good morning everybody. A dear, dear friend of mine asked me just the other day, “Lionel”, he asked, “why do you rabbis always answer a question with a question?” “Why shouldn’t we?” I replied…..
RAT:Rabbi Bleu. What on earth are you doing wandering along half way through the channel tunnel?
BLUE:Why shouldn’t I? And besides, my script says that there is a serious danger of rabbis entering Britain through the channel tunnel.
FOX:I’ll kill that script editor (salivates wildly).
BLACKOUT

I think I was churning out material at that time without being too discerning.

My excuse (not that excuse is needed) is that I was, by then, preoccupied with thoughts of setting up the business that became Z/Yen.

Anyway, this lyric about Yemen could have been used practically any time in the last 25 years (he writes in April 2019) but probably best that it remained (and remains) on the unused pile.

_ CIVIL WAR IN THE YEMENS _

(To the Tune of “Oranges And Lemons”)

VERSE 1

Oranges and lemons,
Civil war in the Yemens;
The people are starving,
While the warlords are carving.

VERSE 2

Watch tourists hair raise,
They flew in British Airways;
“BA’s too rich”,
Says an aggressive bitch.

VERSE 3

Who could she be?
She’s that cow Kate Adie;
What does she know?
She’s in Sarajevo.

VERSE 4

Rift twixt North and South,
Big as Kate Adie’s mouth;
Those Brits who stayed on,
Flee from San’a to Aden.

OUTRO

Here comes a vandal to burn, loot and rout,
And here comes a chopper to fly Britons out.

Below is a video that shows the lyrics to Oranges and Lemons while singers sing that old tune in a rather charming olde worlde folke musicke stylee: