The September 1977 Political Parody Cycle Part 2
The third entry in the cycle is a parody of the once-familiar pop-folk tune "Marianne". Back in the 70s this Terry Gilkyson number was as well-known to most folks as "Home on the Range" still would be today. But it is not a true folk song; rather it was written in 1958 for the film "Windjammer". "Windjammer" was shot in Cinerama, a wide-screen process that eventually was displaced by the universal adoption of CinemaScope. Unfortunately, at some point the film was bumped over into the wrong aspect ratio and the original Cinerama elements discarded (presumably by an idiot.) So "Windjammer" is a lost film; chronologically it is one of the latest films by a major Hollywood studio so distinguished. Without the movie to sustain it, "Marianne" faded from the collective memory.
So some of you may have trouble recalling the tune to which this weak political parody was set back in 1977. For those who can remember, bear in mind that in the last two lines I modified the melody a little to accomodate the line. So these lines don't quite fit the tune as written.
Marianne
Chorus
All day All night - Marianne
Down by the seashore sippin' sand*
Little children make fun of Marianne
Down by the seashore sippin sand
Marianne O Marrianne O where can Marianne be
Marianne O Marianne O you are out of your tree
Children by the dozen liked to bust a gut
When you fell right through the roof of your bamboo hut
All together now!
repeat chorus
(I omitted the the first two lines of the second verse and cut right to the last two lines of modified melody. This forms a sort of coda.)
She did a favor for a congressman and he thought it was great
So now our mad little Marianne is Secretary of State
*"sippin'" - The right word in the original is "siftin'". Actually, this is not a parody usage - I really thought the word was "sippin'".
This isn't real good, but I did recycle the image in line 6 into a short poem also written at this time or a little after, printed below for the first time anywhere:
Thinkin' Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
When he was a-thinkin'
He was a-thinkin' as thinkin' ere ought to be
But Mary Todd Lincoln
When she was a-thinkin'
Well, Mary Todd Lincoln was out of her tree.
Where is Squeaky When We Need Her?
This had a melody that was wholly original. I can remember a good part of the melody, a bouncy, country-type affair, but fortunately only three lines of lyric. I say "fortunately" as the lyrics weren't very good. And they got me into trouble.
Chorus
(Jist of the first line was "sometimes America gets a disease")
And from time to time we need to bleed her
(line lost)
Where is Squeaky Fromme when we need her?
(only one line of verse is known)
Andrew Young is a Mao-Tse Tung (pronounced like "tongue")
I shared this effort with a classmate on my first day at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts that year - I was a junior. The classmate came by and literally slammed the notebook down on my desk missing my face by mere inches. "You are JOKING.... about assassinating the President of the United States!!" He was practically shouting, and these were the last words this particular classmate would ever speak to me. It was a shame, as up to that point we had gotten on pretty well.
Sad story, although I did encounter what I thought was a pretty funny one about Andrew Young in later years. This was in 1984 or 1985 I was reading a great wire article in the paper that had me practically rolling on the floor at my then-work of Croissant de Paris (my job? I wore a sandwich board; my 1985 song "Sign Man", sadly, documents this experience.) The article was titled "Horrors at the Atlanta Zoo Continue to Mount", and it involved a scandal that surrounded the then-director of the Atlanta Zoo. The scandal began to unfold when garbage men were emptying out a Zoo dumpster when the headless body of a gorilla landed in the truck with a massive "foo-la-LOOMP!!" Police reported to the Zoo and discovered the gorilla's head sitting on the desk of the director. The director claimed the gorilla had died of disease; he'd kept the head "for sentimental reasons." Further investigation uncovered that Zoo ducks and chickens had been unceremoniously siphoned off into civic graft, turning up as ingredients in pies served at Atlanta city functions.
Then Atlanta mayor Andrew Young weakly attempted to defend the Zoo director, and in doing so uttered one of the best lines I've heard heard come from a politician: "Honestly I don't know what all the fuss is about. The man has taken care of my dogs for 20 years and I've never had a problem."
Here is a further verse of "In the middle of an Island" - this is the missing second half of the verse:
I just thought we're goin' fishin'
It should've raised my suspicion
When you got out the Sakrete bag
And start to mix it with the sand.
One final memory that neatly ties together the elements of the School for the Creative and Performing Arts (my alma mater, where these parody songs were written), my employment as a walking advertisement, scandal, and other things that may relate to The 1977 Political Parody Cycle. I was out plying my trade as a human ad at Fountain Square one day when I ran into William E. Dickenson, principal at SCPA. He was standing with a wealthy, out of town "Arts" patron with a capital "A". "Mr. D" introduced me as "one of our most brilliant students"; the Arts patron shook my hand, but turned up his nose. "If you are so brilliant" he asked "why are you doing THIS?" He flipped a finger (the index, not the middle one) up against my sandwich board.
I was SO humiliated I could not answer. But Bill answered for me - "He's doing what he needs to do to become a composer."
Later, after I left Cincinnati, Bill also left the city under a cloud of disgrace - he'd been implicated in a trumped-up morals case and forced out of his position of principal of SCPA. I know it wasn't real. It happens anytime the city of Cincinnati decides they don't like someone and wants them OUT. Dickenson went to Florida, where he now runs a respectible charity. I wish him well, and someday hope to reward the faith he showed in me and my so-called "talent."
Needless to say, my "talents" are not shown to their best advantage in the The 1977 Political Parody Cycle. But, I have preserved them here as an example of how funny political matters seemed to be in that time and place. They are not so "funny" now.
Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis@hotmail.com