Count me among those who are unable. I often start snickering when I first hear it start playing.
I have problems with a piece from Handel’s Messiah, “All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray.” When singing it back in high school, our instructor kept encouraging us to make the word “All” less nasal, more “open” or “rounded.” Between that beginning to sound closer to “Oh” and the frequent repetitions of the phrase “All we like sheep” on its own, friends of mine and I would occasionally sing “Oh, we like sheep” and try to make up alternate words for the rest. Only this phrase has stuck in my memory, however.
Weird Al pretty much “ruined” the song “Lola” for me; I automatically sing “Yo-yo-yo-yo-yoda” on the chorus. And I heard the parody of the Beastie Boys’ “Girls” via Dr. Demento - “Squirrels” - before I knew there was an original song. I nearly fell out of my chair when I finally heard the original for the first time.
Tune: “Can Can” Tahhhh-Rahhh-Rah BOOM-de-ay!
They took my clothes away
When I was standing there
They took my underwear.
And now I stare at them, they stare at me
And I don’t know what to do.
Bugs Bunny: What would you want with a wabbit?
Can’t you see that I’m much sweeter?
I’m your little señoriter.
You are my type of guy.
Let me straighten your tie
and I shall dance for you.
Once heard the theme to Gilligan’s Island sung to the tune of Stairway to Heaven. Can’t hear the real version without an overlay of it playing in my head.
And all of the Weird Al songs. Especially I Love Rocky Road. Ow!
McTavish is dead and his brother don’t know it.
His brother is dead and McTavish don’t know it.
They’re both of them dead and they’re in the same bed,
But neither one knows that the other one’s dead.
If it lives in a reef
and it has lots of teeth
thats a moray.
mrAru wrote a new years midwatch log to the tune of Drunken Sailor
about the only thing I can still remember is:
What do you do with a sucking chest woundx3
Early in the midwatch
Seal it with petrogauze
and
What do you do with a pneumothoraxx3
Early in the midwatch
Call the duty on rotation
Almost any Emily Dickenson poem can be sung to The Yellow Rose of Texas
La Bamba
A friend came up with it, he married a hispanic wife, and she likes the song:
What are the words to La Bamba
I don’t know, I just don’t know, I have no clue
Can someone tell me, please just tell me
What are the words to la bamba
before i go insane, batshit insane, totally insane
Spike Jones’ version of the “Irish Washerwoman” song: Oh, the Danube is green as the grass in the spring
It’s as green as the dollar you spent on a fling
It’s as green as the paint that you put on the screen
Itr’s as blue as, the Danube is greener than green.
(Acknowledgment to a Teeming Millionth who clarified the “fling” line for me. )
(Sung in an Irish broigue for best effect.)
My Dad had his own version of “School Days,” which I have posted on www.amiright.com : School days, school days, shooting craps and pool days,
Chugging-a-lug in the local bar, shooting it up from a hopped-up car;
You were my tramp from head to toe, I was your two-bit Romeo;
You wrote on my slate “Be careful Joe, or we’ll have a couple of kids.”
From Chopin’s Polonaise in A major: Mayonnaise is not as good as Hollandaise,
Hollandaise is inferior to Sauce Bearnaise!
(Acknowledgment to Josefa Heifetz.)
From Sex to Sexty: Would you like to cop a feel in my Merry Oldsmobile?
(Spoken) “I’d rather get in your Buick–and fuick.”
I hate to admit it, but “Fur Elise” was ruined for me by, of all things, that stupid McDonald’s commercial I saw a million times when I was a kid.
Oh I wish I were already there
Instead of here
Playing this song.
And I would have a big choc-o-late shake,
A cheeseburger
And also-whoops-and also fries.
I have the rest of the “lyrics” in my head too, but you get the point. Even when I learned to play the piece when I was in high school, I heard that stupid, stupid song in my head.
)