Daidleicious—Love it! Great, Grate n' GREEAAAAAT!

PARODIST ON THE GOOF - now playing.....

Unique, and zany in a good way

I laughed all the way through. This is one of those types of parodies where one is getting loads of connotations, rather than denotations and they are hilarious.

Faves:

Yuppie-dinkie-hippie multi-squaddly-million dollar sum

little Latin Lupe-lu

'O, L-L the Wise: If you please, idle-daidle, pardon me but biddy-bum.'

And the Allen Sherman reference and example.

Thanks 'Roofie', Dave W, AFW, Meriadoc. If you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, I know you had a good time. There are a couple of pacing glitches here and there but nothing to be too ashamed of. Merry, you're very astute at cottoning on to some of my favorite lines, too.

"Lyricist" has one more syl than "Rich Man", which detracts a bit from the gitgo, and again when repeated in song. No really easy fix, and "Lyr'cist" is awkward, but perhaps "If I Churned Out Lyrics" or "If I Wrote Good Lyrics" or variations on that general idea.

One more quickie before signing off:
"If I Purred Great Lyrics".

. . . now if I were a Purist . . . but just another CatLickin' ho . . .

@ Starting with ... /unKnownVotress (aka Tommy?): I was aware of the title syllable count, but since the word lyricist is naturally spoken with a benign half-beat for the second, I felt I could get away with it. And judging by the other comments, I did. Sure, it wasn't ideal, but better than the alternatives to my mind. To me, the syllable count is important if it throws out the rhythm, but it was comfortably singable with that extra half-beat.

A more regrettable screw-up was the Allan Sherman line - just Al Sherman might have fixed it, but that would not be his stage name. It was a difficult line to sub.

One of the pitfalls with a song like this is the rhythmic variations within the same number of beats. On paper it looks like too many or not enough, but against the oeriginal vocal it works. Of course I follow the rhythms dictated by the stresses in the lyrics as much as possible. but there is still a little room for the singer's improvisation, and I'm pretty sure stage performers of this OS vary it from night to night as the whim takes them. I found similar problems with subbing 'The Battle of New Orleans'. Once you've got the rhythm in your head, you can't go astray, therefore alternative lyrics tend to add in double beats or reduce them as the content demands. Though it doesn't match perfectly with the original, performers would give it a couple of sing-throughs to make any necessary adjustments.

As usual, my focus is on how the parody would come up on a stage with a little rehearsal, how it 'sounds' as a performance rather than a stand-alone literary piece. I think this factor is at the heart of how our approaches differ. Another is punctuation. While I'm a stickler for it in prose, I use none in verse unless it muddies the meaning without it. My reason for this is that pauses, rises and falls in tone, insinuations etc. are the job of the music itself, just as they are for speech modulation. I see a lot of very clever parodies here that wouldn't cut it in performance because of their grammatical complexity and esoteric subbing. It's just a matter of what you're trying to achieve, and whether you've set yourself a literary challenge or a musical one.

Feel free to disagree, but I would like you to know I'm 'on the job', so to speak.

LL: unKnownVotrix, a/k/a NorCalVotrix, a/k/a NorCalHo, a/k/a LittleCupCakes, and many others, is a frequent commenter here, whose comments are often zany and Zen-y, in a thoroughly enjoyable way. Tributed here, and the comments will help you to know her better:

http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/traditionalfrench3.shtml

Regarding the other issue, this writer has always had the POV that this site is a *written* medium, so parodies need to read smoothly, without stumbles or speedbumps, and not rely on a singer's adjustments. When they go to YouClick or SoundTube or whatever, of course one may do as one wishes. IMHO, and I"m stickin' to it.

"I felt I could get away with it. And judging by the other comments, I did." ... Oh, c'mon, one can get away with anything with anyone else -- well, most others. Who else is a stickler for pacing? xD
  Even when sung, title hits "rich" very hard:
"if I were a RICH man". The sub,
"if I were a LYR (i-cist) requires taking a lot of that empasis off of rich/lyr.

"I see a lot of very clever parodies here that wouldn't cut it in performance because of their grammatical complexity and esoteric subbing." ... Which is exactly the fun: all of that erotic -- I mean, esoteric -- subbing, that does NOT work "on the air". Having written for radio, I know this. It's much more limiting in wordplay, etc. Note the intro here, that half the song was dropped by the radio producer due to length limitations:

http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/myfairladylernerlowe0.shtml

I'm still not allowed to post the recording, because she may run again in 2016 etc. So here's one that I can post the recording (because it's obsolete topically), where it had to be cleaned up:

http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/geraldfriedandsherwoodschwartz0.shtml

Footnote explains that "fornicate" became "triangulate" for the radio version, which is here:
  http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=1236573&songID=11495708

I rather like the greater freedom to mangle words, names, sentence structure, etc., and to do obscure or arcane puns and references in this written medium. Speaking of names, "Al Sherman" would have been perfectly fine; we know whom you meant. In fact, name-mangling is another joy of the written. Here are two specifics, names of famous scientists/mathematicians:

http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/jimmiejonesjamestaylor0.shtml

... and here is the general attitude towards mangling words to fit your structure, which many readers consider a bonus:

http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/gilbertsullivan118.shtml

(There was a mangled name in there, too.) Readers approved wholeheartedly. Still, if you prefer respectfully to agree to disagree, point duly noted. What's important: Enjoy!

Yeah, that first one was moi. (Serendipitous initials; not intended, but cool. ;) ... figured the comment style and content spoke for itself. ;-D

Nice, and neat satire of the "word salad" lyricists. Fives.

Thanks, Susanna. One of my personal faves of my own efforts, so I appreciate you dropping in.