Along the same lines, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” can be sung to the tune of “Hernando’s Hideaway,” so instead of “There IS…a DARK…se-clud-ed PLACE,” I always think, “Whose WOODS…these ARE…I think I KNOW.”
Until just now I had thought line 3 was
It’s as green as the page of a book on the screen.
Thanks. Because that made no sense whatsoever.
And further - I’m not the one who thought this up, but passing it along should be good for a few more millenia in purgatory - if there were such a thing:
Amazing Grace can be sung to the tune of “Gilligan’s Island”. Kind of perks it up a bit.
It can also be sung to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun” - which actually sounds pretty good.
And “Advance Australia Fair”, the national anthem Down Under.
When you’re balls hit a tree you no longer can pee, that’s Amore …
Can anyone hear the “Colonel Bogey March” without thinking
Comet … will make your mouth turn greeeeen etc.?
Yes, that indeed, and also…
Herman, what have you done to me?
Herman, you’ll have to marry me.
Herman, you were determined
And now it’s Herman and Sherman and me.
I thought the other day that, in the U.S. at least, The Battle Hymn of the Republic must be one of the most widely parodied songs. One of many variations:
Glory, glory, hallelujiah! Teacher hit me with a ruler! I socked her in the bean with a rotten tangerine, and her teeth came marching out.
You never heard this version:
Strangers in the night,
Friends in the morning.
Strangers in the night
Exchanging rubbers
This one’s too tight
I’ll try another…
Daniel Boone was a man
Yes a biiiiig man
But the bear was bigger
So he ran like a n**r up a tree
The Bulwer-Lytton contest a few years ago had an execrable entry that ruined this one for me. It was about a cow who proposed that the cattle no longer needed Farmer Pietro to provide warmed stalls for them, since their own lowing would keep them warm, and ended by warning the cows: “When the mooing heats our isle, I can beat Pete’s supply–eat some more hay!” I can no longer hear the song in my head without these words.
Daniel
Can anyone hear Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” now without thinking Jimi says, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy?”
How about:
Jingle Bells
Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
The Batmobile lost its wheels
And the Joker got away
And, what about that marching tune (I looked it up; it’s the Colonel Bogey March and was the theme song for those Getty Gas commercials about 25 year ago) that has acquired the lyrics:
Hitler, he only had one ball,
Goering, had two but very small,
Himmler had something simmler,
But poor old Goebbels had no balls at all.
To the tune of “Yesterday”
Leprosy
I’m not half the man I used to be
There are pieces hanging off of me
Oh leprosy is killing me…
You know, until now, I’d always believed my husband made that one up. He and his buddy in high school were constantly making up crap lyrics to songs and I just thought this one was another one of those!
“The Irish Washer Woman”
Damn. I had forgotten. Isaac Azimov once wrote an intro or essay in which he put the chemical paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde to that tune. I think he said it was dactylic tetrameter. It was in response to someone saying that it was a difficult word to pronounce. The poor guy got a demonstration of the song when he didn’t know what dactylic tetramet was. Left him open mouthed in the hall of the Chem Building.
I sang it to my kids once, when they were small and they thought I was singing in Irish. Not only do I hear it when I hear the tune, it’s probably the only way I ever would have remembered a word like paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde.
Here’s another from Sex to Sexty–sung to the tune of “Red River Valley”:
From poor Sally they say you are running
With your pants hanging over your arm
And her Pappy a-cussin’ behind you
Though you swear that you meant her no harm.
You were paid to pitch hay, not make whoopee
Now poor Sally has swollen from woo
So remember poor bed-ridden Sally
And the shotgun that’s waitin’ for you!
And sung to the tune of “Marianne”:
All day, all night, Marianne,
Who the hell you think I am, Superman? 
The “Colonel Bogey” Comet song in full (see www.amiright.com ):
Comet, it makes your mouth turn green
Comet, it tastes like Listerine
Comet, it makes you vomit
So get some Comet and vomit today!
To the tune of Turkey in the Straw, it was the song my dad used as a lullaby for my kids.
We were fighting on the Nile
all the while, all the while
We were fighting on the Nile
all the while, all the while
We were fighting on the Nile
all the while, all the while
We were fighting on the Nile
all the while, all the while.
Second verse:
We were fighting …
Speaking of “Turkey in the Straw,” Garry Moore (or George Gobel) came up with this version:
Oh, I had a little chicken and she wouldn’t lay an egg
So I poured some hot water on her right-hand leg
Then I poured some hot water on her left-hand leg
Now my little chicken laid a hard-boiled egg!
The “Toreador-a” song was from the Beverly Cleary book *Otis Spofford * (1953).
Thanks, guys. I’m going to have incredibly bad parody songs stuck in my head all day! :eek: Just for that, here’s The Irish Washerwoman turned into the (Ted) Kennedy rag:
I have the Capitol Steps to thank for ruining a perfectly good love song. Let me set the scene. The gentleman and I are in a movie theater watching Phantom Of the Opera. I’d wanted to see it for ages and love the music. The movie gets to the point where they sing “The Music Of the Night”, which to me is a rather romantic song. Unfortunately, the gentleman next to me was trying hard to keep from laughing out loud. You see, he was used listening to a rather different version – the Capitol Steps parody, “The Loonies of the Right”! I’ll see if I can get you a bit of the lyrics later.
Forbidden Broadway has altered many a Broadway melody for me…
“Moving Out” came about, now it plays in a strange place
And my songs are performed by a rock and roll elf.
While a singer contorts with his crotch in his own face.
I don’t think it’s okay that he plays with himself.
I never said you could make Uptown Girl a disco dance.
I never wrote for twinkies in tight pants.
You’ve got me wrong, I don’t belong.
I’m not a Broadway fan of Jerry Herman.
Pepper Mill can’t hear “The Ride of the Valkyrie” or “The Blue Danube” without thinking of Warner Brothers cartoons. They’ve definitely been ruined for her. (For me, “THe Blue Danube” conjures up 2001. Different tastes…) And, of course, Allan Sherman has ruined “Dance of the Hours” with his “Hello Muddah” song.
Eve has mentioned the Gilligan’s Island verses for Carmen that infect me, as well, but another revision of that era is the “Happy Anniversary” lyrics to the “William Tell Overture” that appeared on "The Flintstones in the 1960s. I’m surprised how many people seem to know this, evenm though AFAIK it only appeared in the one episode:
“Happy Ann-i-ver-sary
Happy Ann-i-ver-sary
Happy Ann-i-ver-sary
Ha-----ppy Anniversary!”
By the way, although all the lyric books show it as “One Ton Tomato”, my father always heard “Guantanamera” at “One Ton of Metal”, which fits a bit better.
Being one of my favorite tunes I hate that I can’t shake these lyrics taught to me by my 5th grade teacher:
It’s a bird, it’s a plane no it’s Mozart and his fortieth symphony. . .
Another tune I love that I can’t help but ruin is Copeland’s Hoedown from his ballet Rodeo. After the movement ends I must say out-loud:
BEEF, it’s what’s for dinner!
Emily Dickenson Poems fit to either the Yellow Rose of Texas or Gilligan’s Island. They also work for Amazing Grace but it’s a lot more fun to sing them fast:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
Add me to the list that sings “Neither a borrower not a lender be…” thanks to Gilligan’s Island.
There’s also:
The Blue Danube Waltz
By Straus, the louse.
He lives in a house
with Mickey Mouse.
I always wanted to hire a jug band, dress up like Minnie Pearl, and sing Emily Dickinson to the tune of Yellow Rose of Texas: I’d call my show “The Cow-Belle of Amherst.”