Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Ear-Worms Anyone?

Things are a bit fraught around here at the moment - no, it's not catastrophic, just a bit hard to cope with - so, of course, my brain wandered off on a weird tangent. For reasons unknown, it wanted an ear-worm and, after a few half hearted attempts - The Green-Eyed Dragon With Thirteen Tails (No link to a performance as most don't do it justice once you've heard the original version as performed by Stanley Holloway and written by Greatrex Newman but you find the lyrics here.) and When I'm Cleaning Windows (George Formby) both tried to muscle in - the clear winner is The Ball Bearing Bird by Frankie Davidson.

Don't thank me. I'm always glad to help.

Just a note about The Green-Eyed Dragon: although there are a number of versions of the lyrics on the internet most of them have been made more politically correct by removing the lines

"He'll feed
 With greed
 On little boys, puppy dogs and big fat snails.
 Then off to his lair each child he'll drag
 And each of his thirteen tails he'll wag."

Presumably this is because it's seen as too scary for children. It seems a pity because it really isn't aimed at them, is it. After all "MP" "R.I.P." and "income tax" aren't exactly childish concepts and, even as a child who loved fantasy I, for one, was well aware that dragons didn't actually exist outside fiction and revelled in the humour of it dying of excess of indigestible - and to me just as fictional - plum cake (I'd never heard of it in real life at the time but was able to work out that it was some kind of heavy fruit cake for which I had a strong dislike).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sometimes the concept of politically correct goes too far, something I don't find satisfying at all.

MJ, A to Z Challenge Co-Host
Writing Tips
Effectively Human
Lots of Crochet Stitches


Helen V. said...

Thanks for dropping by MJ. I agree. We don't seem to get the balance right, do we.