Most Outrageous Rhyme Competition

[ardcarp]

W S Gilbert is probably the nearest rival:

When in that House M.P.'s divide,
If they've a brain and cerebellum, too,
They've got to leave that brain outside,
And vote just as their leaders tell 'em to.

I seem to remember W.S. Gilbert's Major General, with some difficulty, coming up with 'sat a gee' to rhyme with strategy.

[Leinster Lass]

I seem to remember W.S. Gilbert's Major General, with some difficulty, coming up with 'sat a gee' to rhyme with strategy.

See #11/12

[johncorrigan]

'I've a sister in Toronto who's a nurse
And I've had a bit of bother laying turf
It's life, not books, that taught me all I've learned
Woop, in the oven my rice pudding's getting burned!
Ere, have you seen the new attachment on me drill?
I must have the cat put down, cause he's ill'


'I'm a wobbly jelly, you're a pink blancmange
I'm a sherry trifle, you're a chocolate sponge
Your dad wears a paper hat, mine inflates balloons
Whoops! Boodly boop! Pop! Here comes a spoon!'

Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band - 'My Pink Half of the Drainpipe'

[Petrushka]

The opening of Gee, Officer Krupke from West Side Story:

Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke
You gotta understand
It's just our bringin' up-ke
That gets us out of hand
Our mothers all are junkies
Our fathers all are drunks
Golly Moses, naturally we're punks!


The 'Krupke'/'up-ke' rhyme always makes me smile.

[Leinster Lass]

Allan Sherman: Muddah/Fadduh/Granada

[Pulcinella]

I think it was an ENO production of La Traviata that had something like:

You must go and see your sister
For I know that you have missed her.

In terms of operas, Auden's 'lyrics' for Paul Bunyan take some beating.
I remember cringing when I went to see it (and playing 'Guess the rhyme').
I don't have the full libretto, but there are some examples in the CD booklet.
Here's one, from the Food Chorus:

Do I look the sort of fellow
Whom you might expect to bellow
For a quail in aspic, or
Who would look as glum as Gandhi
If he wasn't offered brandy
With a lobster Thermidor?

[Rolmill]

I'm a great fan of the songs of Flanders & Swann, not least for the wonderful lyrics. Here are a couple of extracts from one of my favourites, 'Misalliance':

Said the right-handed honeysuckle to the left-handed bindweed,
"Oh, let us get married, if our parents don't mind, we'd
Be loving and inseparable, inextricably entwined, we'd
Live happily ever after" said the honeysuckle to the bindweed.
.....

Said the anti-clockwise bindweed to the clockwise honeysuckle,
"We'd better start saving, many a mickle macks a muckle,
Then run away for a honeymoon and hope that our luck'll
Take a turn for the better" said the bindweed to the honeysuckle.

[johncorrigan]

Allan Sherman: Muddah/Fadduh/Granada

Also Mr Sherman, 'They'll put castanets on, and ruin your stetson!'

[gurnemanz]

I've always remembered this classic from Verse and Worse:

Spring iz sprung, da grass iz riz
I wonder where dem boidies iz?
Da little boids is on da wing.
Ain’t dat absoid?
Da little wings iz on da boid.

[Tapiola]

(Any thread that brings Tapiola back is a good’un)

Nick

But Noah he sinned, and we have sinned; on tipsy feet we trod,
Till a great big black teetotaller was sent to us for a rod,
And you can't get wine at a P.S.A., or chapel, or Eisteddfod,
For the Curse of Water has come again because of the wrath of God

Wine and Water (GK Chesterton )

[johncorrigan]

Jake Thackray:
While you, Sister Josephine,
You give a goodbye sniff of benzedrine
To the convent budgerigar.
A bloody funny nun you are!

[Padraig]

Isn't it 'strategy/sat-a-gee'? Whichever, it's the work of a mischievous mind!

In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy,
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee -

plus

About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news -
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

and - the original commercial?

Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

and for luck -

Yes, I have my own views:
But the teachers I follow
Are the Lyrical Miews
And the Delphic Apollow.
Unto them I am debtor
For spelling and rhyme,
And I'm doing it bebtor
And bebtor each thyme.

Quiller-Couch

[Serial_Apologist]

Even though That's Why Darkies Were Born would never be sung today, let alone recorded, it still seems strange to hear the great Paul Robeson doing it, even though in fact meant as satire in its time, apparently!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqaw2jviEsQ

I have Lol Coxhill and David Bedford to thank for alerting me to this period piece on Lol's "Ear of the Beholder" album of 1971.

[johncorrigan]

Even though That's Why Darkies Were Born would never be sung today, let alone recorded, it still seems strange to hear the great Paul Robeson doing it, even though in fact meant as satire in its time, apparently!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqaw2jviEsQ

I have Lol Coxhill and David Bedford to thank for alerting me to this period piece on Lol's "Ear of the Beholder" album of 1971.

I suppose with satire being in the ear of the receiver, S_A, it depends whether the audience starts off thinking that it's satire or 'true'. It was amazing to hear Robeson singing it and perhaps part of the problem is that there is no indication in his voice that this is satire...he sings it completely straight, like he was singing many of his great songs. I noticed from info attached to the video that Randy Newman had picked some of it up and used it. Made me think of his great song 'Rednecks' where he was surprised to find that some Rednecks had taken to singing the song as a badge of honour...not quite what Randy intended.