"Come, let's take flight
Let's quite this scene tonight,
Whilst they sleep on endless
In their wrecked designs..."
"Ah, we meet again,
My trusty friend,
Demanding new favours for old times' sake..."
"Ah, just to sleep...
without these thoughts...
But the angels shout...
Resurrecting Doubt..."
"I only know what I've been working for
Another you so I could love you more
I really thought that I could take you there
But my experiment is not getting us anywhere..."
"I'm here
On another planet
How's it with you
On your planet
All was surreal
On this planet
It felt so regal - it was so romantic
Now it's all changed
And the plot's unfolding
Another fairy tale
With a twisted end..."
"Could be a preacher - could be a teacher you want the world to meet your maker
Now a lecher transforms a traitor
With a petrol flaring eye ....
Come and see the corner speaker
Come and see his suit drip dry
The passers-by have one obsession
To hear his raving to the sky
Mad eyed screamer on your knees
Mad eyed screamer you are not pleased
With the chatter in the trees
Your balls are freezing in the breeze..."
"Standing there in the thoroughfare
They stand and stare with that gormless air
Does what you won't understand scare and make you mad?
Resentful and envious, don't you disgust yourself?
So funny to see how pathetic some men can be..."
"The woods and the town
covered in snow
all transformed to a fairytale
like the fresh page of a book opened up
ready
waiting
for the story to begin
for you're all in a scene
objects in black ink
fringed in white
breathing and living
and anticipating
a colour
all transformed to a fairytale
unreal and inviting
inviting you to step in
and follow the path neverending
you're now leaving
imprints
and somehow expecting
expecting someone
maybe the prince in disguise
suffering a snow queen curse
but you're wrong of course
it's in reverse..."
"She stepped into the hall of mirrors
Where she discovered a reflection of herself
Even the greatest stars discover themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars discover themselves in the looking glass
Sometimes she saw her real face
And sometimes a stranger at her place
Even the greatest stars find their face in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars find their face in the looking glass
She fell in love with the image of herself
and suddenly the picture was distorted
Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass
She made up the person she wanted to be
And changed into a new personality
Even the greatest stars change themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars change themselves in the looking glass
The artist is living in the mirror
With the echoes of himself
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars fix their face in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars fix their face in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass..."
"...Now, if I may digress momentarily from the main stream of this evenings symposium, I'd like to sing a song which is completely pointless but is something which I picked up during my career as a scientist. This may prove useful to some of you some day perhaps, in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances. It's simply the names of the chemical elements set to a possibly recognizable tune.
There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium,
<gasp>
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
<gasp>
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There's sulfur, californium, and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha'vard,
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered.
...Now, may I have the next slide please?
Got carried away there."
"...Now I'd like to turn to the folk song, which has become in recent years the particularly fashionable form of idiocy among the self-styled intellectual. We find that people who deplore the level of current popular songs -- although I admit they do seem to be recording almost anything these days. Have you heard Sesue Hayakawa's record of Remember Pearl Harbor? These same people who deplore the level of current popular songs and yet will sit around enthralled singing Jimmy crack corn and I don't care or Green Grow The Rushes, Oh! -- whatever that means. At any rate, for this elite I have here an ancient Irish ballad, which was written a few years ago, and which is replete with all the accoutrements of this art form. In particular, it has a sort of idiotic refrain, in this case rickety-tickety-tin you'll notice cropping up from time to time, running through, I might add, interminable verses. The large number of verses being a feature expressly designed to please the true devotees of the folk song who seem to find
singing fifty verses of On Top Of Old Smokey is twice as enjoyable as singing twenty-five.
This type of song also has what is known technically in music as a modal tune, which means -- for the benefit of any layman who may have wandered in this evening -- that I play a wrong note every now and then.
This song though does differ strikingly from the genuine folk ballad in that in this song the words which are supposed to rhyme - actually do.
I, ah, I really should say that - I do not direct these remarks against the vast army of folk song lovers, but merely against that peculiar hard core who seem to equate authenticity with artistic merit and illiteracy with charm.
Oh, one more thing. One of the more important aspects of public folk singing is audience participation, and this happens to be a good song for group singing. So if any of you feel like joining in with me on this song, I'd appreciate it if you would leave -- right now.
About a maid I'll sing a song,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
About Sinead I'll sing a song
Who didn't have her family long.
Not only did she do them wrong,
She did ev'ryone of them in, them in,
She did ev'ryone of them in.
One morning in a fit of pique,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One morning in a fit of pique,
She drowned her father in the creek.
The water tasted bad for a week,
And we had to make do with gin, with gin,
We had to make do with gin.
Her mother she could never stand,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
Her mother she cold never stand,
And so a cyanide soup she planned.
The mother died with a spoon in her hand,
And her face in a hideous grin, a grin,
Her face in a hideous grin.
She set her sister's hair on fire,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
She set her sister's hair on fire,
And as the smoke and flame rose high'r,
Danced around the funeral pyre,
Playin' a violin, -olin,
Playin' a violin.
She weighted her brother down with stones,
Rickety-tickety-tin,
She weighted her brother down with stones,
And sent him off to Davy Jones.
All they ever found were some bones,
And occasional pieces of skin, of skin,
Occasional pieces of skin.
One day when she had nothing to do,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One day when she had nothing to do,
She cut her baby brother in two,
And served him up as an Irish stew,
And invited the neighbors in, -bors in,
Invited the neighbors in.
And when at last the police came by,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
And when at last the police came by,
Her little pranks she did not deny,
To do so she would have had to lie,
And lying, she knew, was a sin, a sin,
Lying, she knew, was a sin.
My tragic tale, I won't prolong,
Rickety-tickety-tin,
My tragic tale I won't prolong,
And if you do not enjoy my song,
You've yourselves to blame if it's too long,
You should never have let me begin, begin,
You should never have let me begin...."
Ahhhh, good old Tom...
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