Sunday 4 February 2018

Shania Twain's "VERSE!": An Anthem for Limericists



PARODY LYRICS  
ORIGINAL SONG: "Up!"  is the lead song in the eponymous album recorded by Shania Twain in 2002. The song, in a light country/western format, is notable for its use of a limerick-like rhyme, AABBA, in its five-line verses. As the scansion of "Up!" doesn't fit with the anapestic (x-x-X) triple-rhythm of limericks, some changes were required to modify the traditional limerick stories recounted in this parody.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January 2018. 
SONGLINK:  The verses of this song demonstrate the possibility of using novel song melodies to sing the stories of classic limericks. 



"VERSE!"

(to the tune of "Up!" by Shania Twain)

| I'm hooked on verse| x4

Seems things have gone from bad to worse:
Can't be effusive, must be terse, 
I found an online limerick site,
That would accept my poems alright,
And now I'm hooked on 5-line verse. 

Spend all my time in writing 'lim's.
Don't socialize with hers or hims. 
My brainscan shows a funny bulge  
Where, without limits, I indulge
All my versifying whims.

Limn, limn, limn -  
A verb for 'suffuse with light'.
Lim, lim- 
Great poem if your scansion's right 
Lim, lim'rick - 
A lulu, it's out of sight. 

Out on Nantucket lived a man;
Kept all his cash hid close at hand, 
Until the day when Nan his daughter
She eloped, she shouldn't oughter,
Then she ran off with his can. 

A flee and fly inside a flue
They didn't know just what to do.
The flea opined that they should fly
The fly declined, I don't know why;
They couldn't find the flaw, can you? 

A lady traveler named Miss Bright
On trips made time faster than light.
One day with relatives (poor lass)
Converted energy to mass,
Then she returned the previous night. 

Limn, limn, limn -  
A verb for 'suffuse with light'.
Lim, lim -   
Great poem if your scansion's right 
Lim, lim'rick  - 
A lulu, it's out of sight.

AABBA 
AABBA
AABBA
... yeah  

On limerick verse here is my slant:
No question if you should or shan't. 
If you just take aim and edit
And don't rant; that's to your credit
Once you shoot, you can't recant.

So, I'm addicted: writing lims.
Don't socialize with hers or hims.
My brainscan shows a funny bulge  
Where, without limits, I indulge
All my versifying whims.

I'm hooked on verse;
On 5-line verse;
| I'm hooked on verse| x2

AABBA 
AABBA
AABBA

Yeah ! 



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





























HOTLINKS TO OTHER CANADIAN-THEMED SONG-POSTINGS
..AND A FEW LIMERICK-BASED SONGS
Shania Twain's "Verse": An anthem for limericists. See below.
Canada Day 2015 (singable limericks)



ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS
(Click on any verse-slide to expand and go to thumbnail mode)



















WORDPLAY LINK: 
For wordplay (palindromes, anagrams, eggcorns, creative cartography, etc.) and silly poetry (polished limericks), see our sister blog "EDIFYING NONSENSEhere


No comments:

Post a Comment