mg, I am in stitches. Brilliant!

I like to make up silly lyrics for the first couple of lines of session tunes -- lines that include the tune name. That makes it easier to remember either the tune, if someone asks for it by name, or the name, if someone plays the tune and asks what it's called. I learned this from years of playing with a morris side: "Nebuchadnezzar he gave himself pleasure abusing himself on the BANKS OF THE DEE."

With songs, I have found that Dr Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham" fits an amazing number of straight-meter songs. I call it the universal lyric, and often add it as an extra verse when a really good song is too short. (It's amazing, for example, as a new verse to the shape-note hymn "Northfield." You have to fudge with some of the line endings, but it's so worth it!)

"Green Eggs and Ham" doesn't work so well for songs in jig time, but there's probably another equally silly, equally familiar lyric that would. Like this poem, if you happen to know it as well as I do:

I Woke Up This Morning
– Karla Kuskin

I woke up this morning
at quarter past seven.
I kicked up the covers
and stuck out my toe.
And ever since then
(that's quarter past seven)
I haven't heard anything
other than "no."

They haven't said anything
other than "Please, dear,
Don't do what you're doing"
or "Lower your voice."
Whatever I've done
and however I've chosen,
I've done the wrong thing
and I've made the wrong choice.

I didn't wash well
and I didn't say thank you.
I didn't shake hands
and I didn't say please.
I didn't say sorry
when passing the candy.
I banged the box into
Miss Witelson's knees.

I didn't say sorry.
I didn't stand straighter.
I didn't speak louder
when asked what I'd said.
Well, I said that tomorrow
at quarter past seven
They can come in and get me
I'm staying in bed!