The Super Shuffle of the Basin (Owens and Meyer)

Language: Portuguese.

We reluctantly interrupt the epic poem that is Jessi’s employability tango to bring you this increasingly-ubiquitous-as-we-approach-Sunday “rap” from 1985. Not much to say here, other than maybe it didn’t need to be seven minutes? Maybe cut the saxophone solo? We note, helpfully: a song already laden with double negatives in its pre-Babelpopped state begins to buckle under the weight of triple negatives post-op (“We are not here, not to start no problem”), so we hasten to add that if you want to skip ahead, line six of Steve Fuller’s verse might be the one to hit and get out.

Interestingly (I guess), D.T. Dan Hampton declined to participate in the performance, so we’ll have to imagine what could have been. If I could, just for a moment, step into the shoes of Mel Owens and Dick Meyer (and why would I; read this sad-ass article from the Sun Times about Owens, holy crap), I think it would go a little like this:

I’m Dan Hampton; something something “defensive tackle”
Here is the call of the common grackle
Um, I don’t actually know anything about this position
But I am a sucker for McSweeney’s Limited Editions
I don’t like Superbowl commercials; they all kind of suck
Do that many Americans really need trucks?
If you have severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome
You have to live in a bubble
Which would preclude you from doing
The Superbowl (&c.)

“The Superbowl Shuffle”, N.B., was nominated for a Grammy for “Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance” (so I was wrong when I said “rap” up above, mea culpa), but lost to Prince’s “Kiss”, which means, sometimes, there is justice (yay!). Prince is actually performing at halftime on Sunday. Do I smell a rematch?

If so, all due respect to Walter Payton, who, it is said, runs the ball like he’s making romance, but “Kiss” remains about the sexiest damn thing I can think of right now, and it’s sort of late, and that’s when I think of sexy damn things.

I don’t want to step on Dimetrios Georgos Synodinos’ toes (What? He’s dead? Are all the heroes gone?), but I’m going to call it:

Game: Blouses.

-Samantha

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

CHORUS:
We are the bears
That group that mounts in confusion
On for low, making for you.
We are, thus, that bad.
(We know that we are good.)
To cast its mind as we know in them .

You know that we are to support, just for the amusement,
Whom we support our material. For all,
We are not here, not to start no problem.
We are right to make the super shuffle of the basin here.

Of Walter Payton:
Well, call me sweetness, and I taste to dance.
To function the sphere is as to make romance.
We had the objective since that encampment of training
To give to the Chicago a super possibility of the basin.
We are not making this because we are greedy.
The bears are making it to needily feed.
We did not come here to look the problem.
Us? We only came here to make the super shuffle of the basin.

Of Willie Gault:
That is: Willie, Speedy, and I am classroom of the world.
I taste to function, but I love starting the ticket.
I practice the entire day and dance all the night,
Me, I started to start soon for the Sunday fight.
Now I am so smooth. How much a whirlwind of the chocolate?
Me, I dance a little funky.
Thus, he gives the Attention Girl to me.
He does not have one here that he makes likes it.
My super shuffle of the basin will adjust it exempt.

Of Singletary of the Microphone:
I am Microphone of the Samurai;
I stop them cold.
Part of the defense? great!
And bold me has bogged for completely one, when,
Making what he is, right and adjusting the style,
they give a possibility to me.
It will balance it good.
Nobody that messing in my neighborhood.
I did not come here looking the problem.
Me? I only came to make the shuffle that super of the basin

CHORUS

Of Jim McMahon:
I am the QB punky, known as McMahon.
When I beat turf, I not have got no plant.
I game only my body, all on the field.
I cannot dance, but I can play “pill”.
I motivate the cats, me, exasperate, taste.
I game thus that cool, I point (please!).
This is because you all here in the double started to stop me.
That it makes the super shuffle of the basin.

Of Otis Wilson:
I am Otis! Boy of the breast, one of a type!
Mrs. All, the love for me, my body and my mind.
I am smooth in the wooden floor, as I cannot be,
But not to sucker he that goes to start me after.
Some guys are jealous of my style, and the classroom.
That one is because some extremity above in its donkey
did not come here looking the problem.
Me, starts only for low, to the super shuffle of the basin.

That Fuller of Steve:
They say that Jimbo is our man.
If Jimmy will not be making, certain can of I.
This is Steve. And it is not no wonder
That I function, I eat the lightning and step as the thunder.
It brings thus in Atlanta, bring in Dallas.
That is, for the Halas bear of the microphone and the Pope.
I am not here to feather its ruffle,
Me, I only came here to make the super shuffle of the basin.

Of Richardson of the Microphone:
I am L.A. Microphone, and I cool game it.
Not sneak for me. Because I am not no fool,
I fly in the field and start on for low.
All know that I around not mess.
I can break them, agitate them, in any height of that day.
I taste to steal it and to make the payment to them,
Thus satisfied, I do not cry out to beat to mine hustle.
Because I am just to make the super shuffle of the basin here.

CHORUS

Of the Tooth of Richard:
The man of sack: that he comes, I am its tooth of the man.
If quarterback to be late, he is going to start bending.
We stop the functioning, we stop the ticket,
Me/we like to pour guys in its donkey.
We love playing for the better fans of the world;
You, we improve the start that makes its super plants of the basin.
But he does not start soon, nor does not go to no problem
(Unless you practice the super shuffle of the basin...!).

Of Gary Fencik:
Is Gary here? I am Mr. Limpo.
They call me “beaten man”.
I do not know what they mean.
They play it for much time, and they give attention
To me to function (me, are in my man, a-in-one).
Guys of the Comrade Covers! It for low to the bone, that one.
Because in them, they call “Zone 46”.
Come in! All he leaves us to cry out and to cry out,
“We are going to make the shuffle! To follow, we sound its bell!”

Of William Perry:
You are looking at the coolant. Me, you are rookie.
I can be great, but I am not no cookie (dumb).
You, he saw to beat me, you saw me to function,
When I start to ticket us, he will have more amusement.
I can dance. You, I will see
the other (they who all learn of me).
I do not come here looking the problem.
Me? I only came here to make the super shuffle of the basin.

CHORUS

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane)

Language: Greek

Wikipedia has an entry on all the drafts this song went through, with an eyebrow raisingly dark “early draft”, (1) complete with Old Testament God threatening to muck things up for you and an “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” caliber opener: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last.”

Heartening, then, to see the “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow” in the original Meet Me in St. Louis version, always my favorite line, and which omission and replacement by that “hang a shining star” nonsense I can now blame on Frank Sinatra.

All that said, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Jim Nabors “shining star” version, and not because of “make the yuletide gay,” either (as I am no longer in junior high, NB), but because he holds out the word “bough” at the end for like nine measures but doesn’t actually resolve the word, so it comes out like, “Hang a shining star upon the highest baaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.”

Also, when the song is over, I do my famous-in-some-circles Sergeant Carter impression and go, “Merry Christmas, Pyle.”

If you call me, I’ll do it for you, but until then you’ll have to muddle through somehow.

- Samanth.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Himself has one cheerful few Christmas.
You leave your heart to be light.
The following year, all our problems will be from the view.

Himself has one cheerful few Christmas.
It makes the homosexual yuletide.
It’s the following year that all our problems will be miles along.

Other time as in the old,
Golden days of dance floors,
Of friends of past that were dear in us.
Will neighbor be in us, still, a time?

Someday shortly all we will be together, if the fates allow.
Up to then, it will be supposed, we tangle somehow.
Thus, himself has one cheerful few Christmas now.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(1) Update, a year later, almost to the day: the Wikipedia article has been Wikipedia'd into near-pointlessness, and I don't feel like fixing it right now. Interested parties are advised to read There's Something About Merry on the Entertainment Weekly site, which being almost a year old itself hopefully is here to stick around a bit. -SM

Give a Discontinuance To Me (R. Page and J. Graydon)

It’s the fourth Monday in October which means it’s time for Themesong Friday, and at any rate this made me think of this:

It’s a mere six years since The Jeffersons, and “piece of the pie” has been transformed to “piece of the cake” as the new catchphrase to connote “sassy” (the late 20th century version of “uppity”). No fish is safe from the sucking, opening credits stizz.

This show has an interesting connection to the number nine hundred million.

Nine hundred million is:

• The number of police roles played by Dolph Sweet (“The Chief”) in his career
• The number of times Nell Carter says “Gimme a Break” at the end of the song (twelve million in the Shep Pettibone remix)
• The show’s average Nielsen ranking
• The total number of characters named “Joey” played by Joey Lawrence in his lifetime (Gimme a Break marked his four-hundredth)
• The score I hit on the Surprise-o-meter when I was reminded that Jonathan Silverman was on this show toward the end (he married Julie!).
  (Hm. Jonathan Silverman also played a character named “Jonathan”. Wait, and Matthew Lawrence’s character was named “Matthew” and Nell Carter played a character named “Nell”… WHAT THE SNOT?!)

This show is also the show that taught me what an IUD is (Katie has to go to the hospital to get one removed or something) and once featured Joey Lawrence in blackface in order to teach us all a lesson about something that escapes me now.
Oh yes, “Don’t hire Joey Lawrence.”

Now here is a joke that the writers missed by not being as clever or pretty as me in the Joey Lawrence in Blackface episode:

JOEY: But everyone else in the house was talking about their minstrel cycle, so I thought…
[UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS OF LAUGHTER]

See, writers? You could have scored big with that one, but instead you moved the show to New York. Boo, writers.

I punish you with Dutch.

-- Samanth~

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Give a discontinuance to me.
Certain, I it deserves.
It is time I to the upper part made it.
Give a discontinuance to me.
Ahead I look,
Recovers me, appetite each end.

I want a happy end,
I have been tired of claiming,
Will not let them the bests of me get.

Whoawhoa of Whoa,
Give a discontinuance to me!
The game is overlevering!
My arrival gives a discontinuance
, and plan me!

Me, gives a discontinuance
For the importance of the sky!
What happened to my piece of the cake?

Give a discontinuance to me!
Me gives a discontinuance!
Oh, give a discontinuance, me!
Me gives a discontinuance!
Hey, give a discontinuance to me!

[repeat nine hundred million times]

Lettuce It Only (AKA “Schmeat It”) (Michael Jackson)

I can’t find this anymore because it was on a two-year old message board and predates Google Desktop, but a couple years ago I was reading a bunch of posts by Dino Stamatopoulos talking about working on The Dana Carvey Show; people were asking him about working with Charlie Kaufman, and he said:

Charlie’s a great sketch writer, unfortunately, very few of his sketches got on Carvey. The show was misrepresented to the writers and ended up being more of a primetime SNL, with long character pieces, rather than conceptual sketches.

Charlie had a great idea that would have been perfect for Dana though. It was Weird Al Yankovich’s brother, Weirder Al Yankovich. He would take Weird’s parody of “Beat It”: “Eat it” and make it even crazier: “Schmeat It.” Then, another brother would be introduced in the scene, Normal Al Yankovich. He would take “Eat It” and turn it back into “Beat It.”

[Sic] on the punctuation, and on the “Yankovich”; nerdchildren know there’s no ‘h’ at the end, and if you are reading this, you are likely ein Kindersonderling. Since the sketch never aired, we can only assume that “Weirder Al” Yankovic’s opus might go something like this (note the obsession with food seems to be a genetic trait); here is “Beat It” from the Dutch.

(I was going to do Greek for Dino, but the Greek/English translator was down. Sorry: memories aren’t made of this. I said that because your name is Dino. OK.)

N.B. The original board is long gone, but the above excerpt is from here, and Ed Page on the not-recently-updated-but-always-interesting Danger Blog has another excerpt here, for further reading.


-- Samantha

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

They did not tell him. You ever come around?
Here does not want your face, see? Disappears you better.
The fire in their eyes and their words are really clearly
this way. Lettuce, lettuce. Only you run better.

Do you improve what you do, not want? No, blood can see.
Are no macho people you tough?
Do better. What you, it is possible this way to beat.
But you, wants bad, is lettuce: it only.

Beat it, beat it, beat it.
Nobody wants, becomes, reports.
Showing how funky and strongly your fight is: important.
It are -- which are not found oneself or correctly it -- only,
Beat, beating it only, beating,

Beating, they must; from you, better leave.
Whereas you want to be, no boy can want you.
Get people! Be you living! Want remains!
Do better! What? You can beat it this way?
Only beating.

You must them show that you really do not do.
To be scared, you play with your life. This is no truth or dare.
They kick, you are, then they you to beat,
Then they, you honest are beat this way will tell,
But bad are lettuce. It wants you only.

Beat it, beat it. It beat nobody.
“Wants” become “reports”
Showing how funky are important. And strongly your fight? It is.
Which not found oneself or, correctly, “nobody wants to become reports”.
Showing how funky are important. And strongly your fight? It is.
Who, not found oneself, or correct is lettuce.

It only beats it, beats it, beats it.
Nobody wants become reports showing how funky are important and strongly your fight it is who not found oneself is or correctly it only, beat beating it, beating it, beat lettuce lettuce it, lettuce it, lettuce it, lettuce it nobody wants become reports showing how funky and strongly your fight is important
[...]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So, um, it goes on like this for another nine stanzas or so, so let’s just cut it short here, except to say: Help me, Normal Al Yankovic. You’re my only hope.

-- Smnth

The Ballad of Jed Clampett (Paul Henning)

(from the Spanish)

TV Theme Song Friday manages to fall on a Friday this week. Merrill Markoe once asked Sherwood Schwartz why the theme songs he wrote for Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch were so explicit in explaining each show’s premise and he said something like “Because confused people can’t laugh.” That little bit of show biz acumen was possessed by Schwartz’ predecessor: Paul Henning (right), theme song writer for and series creator of “The Beverly Hillbillies” (and producer of its more Dadaist inverse, “Green Acres”; also “Petticoat Junction”, though neither of those songs were performed by Flatt and Scruggs, like this one).

A critic whose name I can’t find apparently summed up the show as “one joke, nine years”; I say, there’s no shame in that.

Thank you, Paul Henning; if you were alive, I'd tell you about what happened with the “Texas Tea” line and we would laugh with confusion (in Spanish: “¡Ja ja ja!”) and then we'd talk about how well this show would go over if set in modern day Mexico: 40% of the population is looking for this kind of escapism.
If only they could afford TVs.
(Please get your people working on this, whoever ended up winning.)

--Samantha

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It comes and it listens to my history on a named man Jed.
To mountaineer: poor. Hardly kept to his feed from the family.
Then, a day, it threw in a little food,
And raises of the Earth comes a gross petroleum that bubbled:
Black gold of the oil, that is to say, tea of roofing tiles

The first thing, you, you know a millionaire: Jed as an older person.
Kinfolk said, “Jed, movement far from there.”
They said, “California is the place that you ought to be,”
So they loaded upon the car and they were transferred to Beverly:
Swimming pools of hills, that is to say, cinema stars.

Beverly! The hillbillies!

[Closing credits verse:]

Now is the hour to say good bye to Jed. And all their kinships
Wanted to thank for people, to him, amiably to fall inside.
You are everything. Behind, invited the week next to this place.
Helping that piles up of its hospitality:
Hillbilly, that is to say, has fixed an enchantment, acquittal of your shoes,
You that now becomes everything? You, you hear?

Insane (Gnarls Barkley)

Jessi’s Patsy Cline “Crazy” remix last month made me think of this song, and so I listened to it nonstop 7,349 times in a row rather than take the four minutes to translate it. Then I got sleepy.
But then duty roused me, although the results aren’t all that transcendent; the song is curiously impenetrable. Maybe that’s why it’s so catchy.

Of course, as with Robin Williams movies, it wouldn’t be Babelpop if we didn’t learn a little something about ourselves and what it means to be a human in the &c., &c. In this case, what I learned was that the top search for “crazy lyrics” is not Patsy Cline or Gnarls (or Aerosmith or Simple Plan or Seal or even Fine Young Cannibals), but R&B duo K-Ci & JoJo, whom I’ve never had the pleasure of ever hearing about ever before ever. Does that make me lazy?

n.b. My favorite version (until the Paris Hilton cover comes out, no doubt) of this is the first time I saw them perform on Conan, where they’re all wearing towels and they slow it way the hell down and Cee-Lo’s voice sounds like it’s about to give out any second, although the costumes worn in the MTV movie awards performance have a special place in my heart. Cee-Lo would have been so much better than Hayden Christensen! And there could have actually been chemistry between Anakin and Amidala!

You suck too, Jake Lloyd. Preparati la Bara!

-- Samantha

v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

I remember when I remember that I remember
When I lost my spirit.
There were something so pleasant about this phase.
Even your emotions have an echo in so much space

And when you are outside there without care,
I were out of contact;
But it was not because I did not know that enough.
I just knew too much

Which returns me insane
Done, that returns me insane
Done that, probably.
Return to me, insane.

And I hope that you have the period of your life
But thinks that twice.
It is my only council

On now, which make you, which makes. You, which does you who think, you are you?
Ha ha ha, bless your heart!
You really think that you are in The Order?
Well, I thinks that you are insane.
I think. That you are insane,
I think that you are insane. Just like me.

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives outside on a member.
(And very!) That, I remember. Think that: “I want to be like them.”
Since I was small, since I was the little, of it resembled Ohio recreation.
And it is not any coincidence, which I came
And I can die when I am made.

But perhaps I am insane
Perhaps am insane for you
Perhaps am probably insane… for us.

Isle of Gilligan (Sherwood Schwartz)

You might have thought with lines like “The first one kills and skipper too much” this was the theme from Lost, but nope. TV Theme Song Friday, which should be moved to Thursday for the alliteration if we plan to stick with it, and which is being published Saturday this week because I can't get my act together at all, introduces the Theme from Gilligan’s Island by Sherwood Schwartz, as performed by The Eligibles.
N.B. The Wellingtons sang the version that didn’t namecheck the Professor and Mary Ann, whom everyone I know were hoping would fall in love with each other. This never happened, a lesson for all of us, I think.

-S

It feels right, only for the back. And you will hear one tale,
Tale of the one of a trip fateful
That it starts on board of this port of this very small ship.
Sailing kills! It was a powerful man, to skipper brave and certain.
Five passengers had adjusted the sail that day for an excursion of three hours,
An excursion of three hours.

To start, started rough time,
A very small ship was launched,
If not for the courage of the group
That fearless minnow would be lost,
Minnow, either.
Lost.

The adjusted land of the ship in the coast of this uncharted isle of the desert
With Gilligan
Skipper too much,
Millionaire and its wife,
The Star of Film
The professor and Mary Ann,
Here in Isle of Gilligan.

Thus, this is tale of castaways, they is here for a long, long time,
Them will have that to make more better of the things, it uphill is a scaling.
The first one kills and skipper too much,
Will make it much more better,
To make the other comfortable one,
In the nest of the console.

No telephone, neither light neither engine cars,
Not an only luxury,
As Robinson Crusoe, so primitive!
How much it can be?

It, thus, joins us here each week, my friends,
You are certain to start a smile,
Of seven castaways run aground,
Here in Isle of Gilligan.

American Cake, Part II (Don McLean, Madonna, et al)

The translated chorus, both here and in Part I reminds me of that Gwendolyn Brooks thing that you think is really great and clever the first time you read it, but due to the law of diminishing returns or something, each subsequent viewing leaves you a little less excited.* You know how a lot of things are like that?

OK, but so Part II comprises the verses where this song always achieved a perfect mélange of enticing and repelling my high school self. It’s here that McLean’s references seem to spiral inward into such self-aware specificity that the exponentially increasing levels of analysis it seems to be inviting from the listener are kind of what makes it, like, suck? Like the song likes to think that it’s the enigma machine, but really it’s one of those first-attempt-at-a-poem poems where Everything is Actually a Stand In for Something Else. Blahhg.

But, happily, these are also the verses that the Brady Bunch included in their truncated cover version on the album Meet the Brady Bunch, which, when I heard it in college, allowed me to feel just a bit superior, because while by then I had outgrown those childish things, I could imagine the six Brady kids poring over the lyrics and FREAKING OUT because this is the half of the song McLean designed to make suburban teens freak out.

Attic-dwelling, literalist Greg would be all, “The three men he admires most are The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly,” and idealist Marcia would be all, “No, it’s RFK, JFK and MLK,” and that Blakean mystic Jan would be all, “No, it’s the literal Holy Trinity,” but Cindy, little Cindy, looking at a framed picture (Is it Robert Reed? I can't make it out), would spake as a child:

You thay. You’re
Gonna leave. You
Know it’th a lie. You
Know that. Will
Be the day. When I
Die soon

Also, “Fun bird”? WTF, German language?

-Samantha

* Actually, I take it back -- I just listened to it and when
you hear her read it, it makes it OK again. Though
that's not the case with this song.


Helter (more “skelter”) at a summer more swelter.
The birds flew away with a precipitation protection,
Eight miles highly and fast falliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.
It landed, against the rules, on the grass.
The players tried for a forward run,
With the fun-bird on the supplementary income in a form.

Half the temporal air was a sweet odoriferous substance now,
While the Sergeants played a marching melody.
We rose completely, in order to dance,
Oh, but we never received the probability!
Because the players tried, catch, to take;
The marching volume rejected to furnish.
Do you recall, what the day was uncovered, which the music died?

We caught on to sing, So long, Miss American Cake.
Mine drove Chevy to the levee, but the levee? Was it drying!
The good old boys whisky drank (and rye)
And singing, this'll is the day, which I die.
This will is the day, which I die.

All -- oh -- and we were there in a place,
Which a production, which was in the area without time,
To the left again to begin lost.
So concerned: Jack is speedy! Jack is fast!
The Jack Lightning, which sat on a candle owner,
Caused a fire, is the only friend of the devil.

Oh -- and I, it on the stage, watched out there,
My hands became in the fists of a stranglehold.
No angel, who was carried in Hell,
Could break that spell (Satan’s).
And during the flames strongly into the night climbed,
In order to light up the offering candle,
Saw I that Satan, with joy, laugh the day,
Which the music died

It sang so long, it misses the American cake.
Mine drove Chevy to the levee, but... the levee, was it? Drying,
The good old boys whisky drank (and rye)
And singing, this'll is the day, which I die.
This'll is the day, which I die.

I met a girl, who sang the blue
And I asked it for somewhat lucky messages,
But she straight-smiled and turned away.
Forwards, I went, down to the holy memory,
Which I heard the music years became,
But the man said there that the music would not play.

And in the roads: the children cried,
Cried the loving. And the poets dreamed.
But a word was not spoken;
All church-bells were defective.

And the three men admire I most:
The father, son and the holy spirit,
Reached her last course for the coast
The day, which the music died.

And they sang:
So long, so long, Miss American Cake.
Mine drove Chevy to the levee, but the levee was drying.
And they (good old boys) drank whisky and singing rye.
Being is the day, which I die,
These is the day, which I die.

You sang:
So long, Miss American Cake.
Mine drove Chevy to the levee, but the levee -- was it drying!
The good old boys drank whisky and rye.
This are to sing the day, which I die

Television Theme Song Friday Presents “Forming Our Dreams, You Come Applicable!” (Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox)

While we were considering setting up some kind of PayPal donation fund to get something better than dialup for the Guilfords, we were thinking of All the Things that Have Been Struck by Lighting in the History of Earth, and then it hits us: You know who was struck by lightning? The Big Ragu!

Yes! Carmine Rugusa, in Laverne and Shirley’s seventh season memorably (um, to me) was struck by lightning and yet still went on to be cast in a Broadway production of Hair sometime later toward the end of the series. So take heart, Jessi!

We hereby inaugurate Television Theme Show Friday with the theme song from Laverne and Shirley, “Forming Our Dreams, You Come Applicable”.

[Please note that designating today “Television Theme Show Friday” doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll do this again.]

[We just had a crush on Carmine when we were young and wanted to talk about him.]

[We are using the Royal We to deflect some of our hidden shame.]

[Yes, we know the word “one” is missing in the first line; that's how it came out]

Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
Habitual bungler, born loser,
Hare pepper connected.

We will do it!
Give us each possible probability, we take it.
Give us each possible guideline, we break it.
We will let our dreams come applicable.
They do our way.

Nothing becomes us now,
Straight in front and on the rail back now turns.
We will let our dreams come applicable and will do it our way.

There is nothing, which we do not try,
Never belongs to the impossible word.
This mark is not stopping we there. We will do it!

On your marking, you receive sentence, and go you now,
A dream receiving, and we know straight now,
We, our dream come, will let applicable

And we do it our way! Our way!
If you let all come our dreams applicable,
And you do it our way! Our way!
Let all our dreams come applicable,
For me and you



[P.S. I still love you, Carmine]

We Have Constructed this City (Starship)

Which bridge did the peculiar and intrusive air traffic reporter reference in your city? Here in Brooklyn, it was the George Washington, but if one were to buy the album in 1985, and if one were my age at the time, one would perhaps be surprised that it was a different city that was built of rock and roll by the creaking, gasping, calculating band members.

And maybe one would have felt a bit hurt by this cynicism. Why did they do it? Don’t they need somebody to love? Wouldn’t they love somebody to love?

This is from the Italian, just like radio itself.

-- Samantha

We have constructed this city.
We have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.

It has constructed this city.
We have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.

Opinion: you do not know it, or you do not recognize my face.
Opinion: taken care who is not gone to that kind one of the place.
Knee in depth in the hoopla, having sunk in your fight.
Too many instabilities that eat on the night.

Marconi played the mamba, listened to the radio.
Not if remembered: of you have constructed them this city,
Has constructed this city on the cliff and the seam?

We have constructed this city. We have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.
It has constructed this city. We have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.

Someone that plays always the parlor games.
Who takes care itself? They are always changing the society names.
We wish as soon as to dance here. Someone has stolen the phase.
They call them irresponsible. It writes them outside of the page.

Marconi plays the mamba, listens to the radio.
You if it remembers of has constructed them this city,
Has not constructed this city on the cliff and on the seam

We have constructed this city. We have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.
It has constructed this city. We have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.

Other Sunday is right,
In the old police tired with the way
Has obtained the grip of the coil of arrest.
The OH, then, we have lost hardly the beat.

Who counts the monies under the bar?
Who guide the sphere of destruction in two guitars of the cliff?

She does not say to us that you have them need of,
Because we are the ship of shocks
that they try the America,
coming through your schools

(I am observing outside the surplus that bridge of the stringed instrument of the gate gilded outside the other full Saturday of sun gorgeous, not seeing those rejecting to the traffic bumper)

not remembered of (member)(member)

(Than what is your favorite wireless station, in your favorite wireless city? The city from the bay, the city that oscillates, the city that never sleeps)

Marconi played the mamba, listened to the radio,
Not if remembered of you have constructed them this city,
Has constructed this city on the cliff and the seam?

We have constructed this city. We have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.
It has constructed this city. We have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.

It has constructed this city, we have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam.
It has constructed this city, we have constructed this city on the cliff and the seam

(we have constructed, we we have constructed this city) has constructed this city
(we have constructed, we we have constructed to this city)

(repeats and fades)

The Devil Decreased to Georgia (Charlie Daniels Band)

Completing the trilogy of songs that played on my parent’s preferred radio station when I was young and that impressed upon me the consequences of the choices one makes in life, is this, a song that my parents then and I now view with a certain amount of embarrassment. The sheer literalness of the Faustian bargain portrayed here is why one cannot listen to a good 60% of Christian Rock without being overcome by confused pity, but here the hard shellac of 25 years of irony helps out a bit.

Was “Country” better before it lost the vestigial tail “-and Western”? I don’t know, but I like how Johnny wins not by outwitting the Devil by discovering a small technical loophole in the contract or something like that (which smacks of Elitist East Coast Liberalism), but simply by dint of the fact that Being an American Automatically Means You Are Better Than the Devil (which was John Abizaid’s runner-up name).

Just look at Charlie Daniels:
Was this the face that lunched a thousand chips?
And ain’t that America?

N.B. In Russia, the Devil goes up to Georgia, a nice touch, but this is from the Dutch, where the sun increases and Old Scratch must decrease. Gentlemen, start your monotonic functions.


--Samantha Moss


The devil decreased to Georgia. He sought a soul to steal.
He in was binds because he was mannered, and he was prepared to make an agreement.
Then he, concerning these young people came who play, saw and it on fiddle hot
And the devil on hickory stump jumped and said: “The boy let me tell you which --
I assume you it did not know, but I am also fiddle player
And as the care you’d to take dare, I now into a bet with you.
You turn rather good fiddle-game, but give the devil, to boy, to have been appropriate:
I bet fiddle of gold against your soul, because I think I improve be then you.”

The boy said: “Johnny of my name, and it a sin can be,
But I will take your bet, you will regret, because I am the bests that ever.”

Johnny, you resin up your arc and plays your fiddle hard
Because the hell break separately in Georgia
And the devil the cards address.
And, if you win, you get this gleaming fiddle which are golden,
But if you lose, get the devil your soul.

The devil put its case open and he said: “I this show to start,”
And the fire flew of its finger tops since he are up arc rosined.
And he drew the arc concerning its ties and it made an angry “SIS” consonance,
Then joined a link of demons, and it sounded something as this

[music containing the “SIS” consonance -SM]

Then, the concluded devil, Johnny said: “Are well, you rather good, Old Son,
But will sit as that President, right, and one can there you show how it would be done

Do the fire on the mount, lope, youngsters, lope
The devil in the house of increasing sun
Chicken in the bread needle, which paste
“Granny selects, your hound bite do?”
“No, child, no.”

[music that is frankly less interesting than the earlier music -SM]

The devil bent its head because he knew that he’d beat
And he empty that golden fiddle said on the spot at the feet to Johnny
Of Johnny: “The devil comes only on back if you want ever try again
Because I you once told, you son of a female is,
I the bests that ever.”

And he played fire on the mount, lope, youngsters, lope,
The devil in the house of increasing sun
Chicken in the bread needle, which paste
“Granny selects, your hound bite do?”
“No, child, no.”

The Riders of Ghost in the Sky (Stan Jones)

Yes, you heard me: Stan Jones, which is why it’s “cowpoke” and not “cowboy”. I’m looking at you, Johnny Cash (“Johnny The Available Money” in Russian, N.B.).

This song is the basis for my understanding of “theology”.
--Samantha

Old cowpoke went to go of one dark and windy day,
On the ridge it rested in proportion to it, it went along its road
When, immediately, mighty the herd of the red color eyed of cow,
Was, which it he saw to hurry through the ragged skies, raises cloudy draw.

Their brands find still on the fire and their hooves were made of their steel,
Horns they were, which black and shiny and their hotter respiration you could feel
Bolt and fear it went through it, in proportion to they, they thundered to sky
It saw that the riders arrived strongly, and it heard their mournful cry

The riders of ghost
Yipie iego oh Yipie ii ay
In the sky

Their side, gaunt of their eye, was soiled to their jackets; by entirely self-possessed with sweat were
Which they, they will go strongly to the bolt that herd and they not will be grasped they
But to reason they obtains go forever in a number upward in the sky
On horses snorting fire... in proportion to they will go strongly, those that they cry

Riders they were relied further by it, and it heard one bell its name
“If you, you want to preserve your soul from hell, riding on our change
In the cowboy of a number after this your roads today, or with us you will go
To attempt to grasp this herd of the devil through these infinite skies.”

Riders of ghost
Yipie iego oh Yipie ii ay
In the riders of the ghost of sky
In the riders of the ghost of sky
In the sky

The Player (Kenny Rogers)

I know, I know he's not really saying them, as in "know when to fold them" -- he's saying 'em. But 'em goes into French as 'fin de support and back into English as 'fine of support, and I feel this extra obfuscation is doing a disservice to a man who makes such fine wood-fired rotisserie chicken.
-- Samantha

The evening of a hot summer
On a train leap for nowhere,
I met the player; we were both too tired to sleep.
Thus, we took turns fixedly looking at,
Out of the window, the darkness
Until the trouble caught up with us,
And it started to speak.

It said, "Wire, I made a life out of the faces of the people of reading,
And knowing what were their charts
Besides they held their eyes.
And if you do not occupy yourselves of my stating,
I can see that you are out of the ace.
For a taste of your whiskey,
I will give you a certain council."

Thus, I gave my bottle to him
And it drank, in bottom, of my last swallow.
Then it strolled a cigarette and asked me a light.
And the night obtained the peace of death,
And its face lost all the expression
Known as: "If you will play the game, boy, you obtained to learn how to play it right."

"You finished by knowing when to hold them,
Know when to fold them,
Know when to go far
And know when to run.
You never count your money
When you sit down with the table.
Enough, the hour ago to count
When to occupy itself made.

"Each player knows that the secrecy with survival
Can what throw far, and can what keep.
Since one gaining of each hand and a loser of each hand,
And the best than you can hope for must die in your sleep."

And when it to speak finished,
It returned towards the window,
Crushed out of its cigarette and faded with to sleep far.
And some share in the darkness
The player, it broke even.
But in his final words I found an ace which I could keep.

"You finished by knowing when to hold them,
Know when to fold them,
Know when to go far
And know when to run.
You never count your money
When you sit down with the table.
Enough, the hour ago to count
When to occupy itself made."

Veronica (Elvis Costello)

I had thought that Time was a fast old train; but here we learn that Time is that which it does laugh above (by strange coincidence, the working title of "A Hole is to Dig" ). I wish "Veronica" had translated to "Veronika" but the spelling with a C is a perfectly respectable Russian name, as I learned from the perfectly respectable sites I found by googling "russian women"

It everything in that dear, small head of yours?
It does go further into the place in the darkness?
Kindly, she did use to know: girl
And I will swear that her name was "Veronica"
Good it was -- used to have carefree reason, her
And sensitive view in her eye
These days, I, it was frightened -- not even it was assured --
If its name will be "Veronica"

You, you do assume, then hands on the eyes,
Veronica dispatches to hide?
And completely time, is which
It does laugh above on those:
They do shout its name,
They do steal its clothing.
Veronica, Veronica

Days -- they did drag by? Benevolences -- wane?
It did roam downward from the town, completely time?
Will is which you do spill from your dream,
With the wolf on the door,
Reaching outside for Veronica

Kindly it was, all of sixty-five years ago
When peace was street where it veins
And the young person sailed aboard the ship in the sea
With image: Veronica

On "Empress India"
And as it did shut its eyes on the peace,
She did select on bones, last week's news,
Was -- which it did have a talk -- its name out of loud again

You, you do assume, then hands on the eyes,
Veronica dispatches to hide?
And completely time, is which
It does laugh above on those:
They do shout its name,
They do steal its clothing.
Veronica, Veronica

Veronica, it sits in its most favorite chair
And it sits very quietly and still
They, cause by its name, they never they obtain to right
And if they make after this, no one another will,
Then but she used to have its carefree reason,
With, devilishly, the view in its eye
To speak, "You can call me that, you is which you love,
but my name will be Veronica"

You, you do assume, then hands on the eyes,
Veronica dispatches to hide?
And completely time, is which
It does laugh above on those:
They do shout its name,
They do steal its clothing.
Veronica, Veronica
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Veronica