Wednesday 30 April 2014

A Ballad of Hospital Restructuring: MERGERWOCKY



POST #37
PASTICHE with PARODY-LYRICS, dedicated to JJH for his 39+th birthday
ORIGINAL SONG: "The House of the Rising Sun" as recorded by "The Animals" 1964, and covered by many others. The original song was a "traditional" folk-piece, first adapted by Roy Acuff, also recorded as a folksong by Woodie Guthrie, Lead Belly, the Weavers, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. 
POETIC PARODY LYRICS:  "Mergerwocky", G. Hurwitz, published in the Western News, 2000, with a more recent version reposted on our sister blog "EDIFYING NONSENSE" with the author's permission. This poetic parody draws inspiration from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky.
ORIGINAL POEM: "Jabberwocky", Lewis Carroll, 1871; the poem was included in the children's novel "Through the Looking Glass" in 1871.    
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, 2014. Some changes in the lyrics from the published version of Mergerwocky were necessary to fit the target song.

KEYWORDS: pastiche, classicsong, Canada, medical















MERGERWOCKY


(to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun")

Restructure! so the i.v. teams
Reclaimed recycled waste.
De-focused were the laser beams
And the closed wards outplaced.

"Beware the Mergertalks, my son!
St Joe's won't bite Council lunch!
Beware the Job-Job bird, and shun
The clawbacking Budgetcrunch.   

He shook his VPs' golden hands:
A business plan he maps,
Then spreadshot he by the Lap-Top key
And synchronized his apps.  

And  as in upsized thought stood he,
The Mergerwock, error-claimed
Came sniffling through the OPD,
De-listing as it came.

Old site! New Site! And deep in debt:
The shuttle-bus shuffled wards.
"Let's integrate, new Mission state!"
He e-mailed to the Board. 

"And hast thou done the Merger-deal?"
A mix of cheers and snarls;
"Come to Grand Rounds, my deanish boys
At the Princess-Di-and-Charles". 

'Twas Wednesday; at the clubhouse bar
Griped Rae-dayed Docs anew,
"Our Conjoint Foursomes shoot near par,
But the Brass still play through, 
But the Brass still play through !"




















HOTLINKS TO OTHER CANADIAN-THEMED SONG-POSTINGS
..AND A FEW LIMERICK-BASED SONGS
Canada Day 2015 (singable limericks)
Limericks About Chemainus, B.C.

UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT
(Click on any chord-chart slide to move to 'song-presentation mode'; then navigate through thumbnails at bottom of page.)

To play the original song, House of the Rising Sun, (Animals' version), check out Corktunes, the songbook of the Corktown Ukulele Jam here.

























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