Gilbert and Sullivan homage time

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Occasioned by this not-particularly-inspired thread:

Ahem…
Is he the very model of a modern liberal weenie-man?
Filled to brim with Soviet-era sweeping economic plans.
He goes to court to chant support for all abortions that he can
And is dismayed should Roe v Wade be challenged by some dumb caveman.

He’s very well acquainted with correctnesses political
And gender forms with dual norms are simply unacceptable
Speak free may all except of course when things get too offensible
He shall be curt should feelings hurt because he is quite sensible.

He likes to brag that his hashtags routinely add a proud #metoo.
To his regret he’s cis and het and as such he feels guilty, too.
He’s on the side, indeed with pride, of all things LGBTQ.
His browser history bursts with porn of women under twenty-two.

Execution, he declares, a punishment that goes too far.
On this he quite so agrees with all the hosts at NPR.
He claims to find the bloodlust of the right-wing wholly quite bizarre.
But he’d gladly kill the prick who last week thoroughly keyed up his car.

He stand with folks of color, finds injustice to be wholly grim,
We are a land of laws and not subject to autocratic whim,
He’s says he feels his blackness always with him like a phantom limb,
But he really doesn’t want those people moving right next door to him.

Upset was he when Hillary did fail to stage a victory show
And horrorstruck he cursed the schmucks who cheered while orange Donald crowed
He claimed that she, compared with he, was clearly a more thorough pro
But secretly and all along, he was much more a Bernie Bro.

Religous schools are made for fools is something he has always claimed,
And happily he’ll quite agree that holy worship is to blame,
For all the problems in the world that one might ever care to name,
But Catholic schoolgirls get him hot and make him feel a bit of shame.

On firearms he sees no harm in calling for an outright ban
At nationalists, he’ll gladly hiss and call them members of the Klan,
And chortle at his clever wit before he sits to eat some flan,
In truth the very model of a modern liberal-weenie man.

Mikado, anyone?

2

Gilbert and who? You mean the guy who wrote “Onward, Christian Soldiers?” (humming) Sorry, it doesn’t really scan. I can make it work, but why?

Is he the very mo-ha-ha-del of a modern lib’ral weenie-man?

You need a different tune or a complete rewrite. :wink:

3

Yes, scansion is a problem. And it’s not funny - it’s just a list of gripes, not real satire or caricature.

Some relevant G & S - Private Willis on guard outside the Houses of Parliament:

I often think it’s comical ― Fal, lal, la!
How Nature always does contrive ― Fal, lal, la!
 That every boy and every gal
  That’s born into the world alive
   Is either a little Liberal
 Or else a little Conservative!
    Fal, lal, la!

4

The song “I’ve Got a Little List”, from the Mikado, often has it’s lines changed to include contemporary annoyances.

A few years ago there was a full production of The Mikado here in Topeka, Kansas. We happen to be the home of the Westboro Baptist church. One item sung by Koko during that song literally brought the audience to it’s feet to clap and cheer:

And those that walk Topeka streets
With signs that hate insist
I’ve got them on my list
They never will be missed!

5

Also “The Lost Chord” (sometimes called his most popular hymn).

Seated on day at the TV,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wondered idly over the remote control.
I know not what I was watching, or what I was seeing then,
but I went past one channel quickly,
and now I can’t find it again

6

We’ve seen the rest, now let’s have the best.

There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium. . .

7

In case anyone is genuinely puzzled, I am impelled to point out that the Major-General’s song is from Pirates of Penzance, not The Mikado. I enjoyed this modern take on it, despite the occasional scansion issues and not knowing who the subject is (apart from reading the linked thread).

8

From Sequential Threads.