Since we're posting some of these critters, here's a real tour de force. In high school, back in the mists of antiquity, I knew a kid named Ted Poole. Ted was tall and skinny, with dark hair, piercing dark eyes, and a totally off-the-wall sense of humor. He performed in most of the high school drama productions. I wouldn't necessarily call him a "folk singer," but he sang a variety of songs and played the guitar a bit, picking up a few bucks here and there by singing for various clubs and organizations. He did a particularly graphic version of Blood on the Saddle. Every time he sang the word "blood," he sounded as if he were about to barf, and he really emphasized and dragged out the word "mashed." He sang it once for a Rotary Club luncheon, and for some strange reason, most of the plates were returned to the kitchen untouched, and they never asked him back.

One of the songs Ted did that brought the house down and, at the same time, left his audiences exhausted, was the Lord Chancellor's song from Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe. It has a tune, of course, but it doesn't really need to be sung. Just stick to a sort of chant, following the usual Gilbert and Sullivan "buckety-buckety" rhythm.

(Enter Lord Chancellor, very miserable.)

(Plaintively, but not emphasizing the meter)
Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers!

(Begin a relentless "buckety-buckety" rhythm)
When you're lying awake with a dismal headache,
        and repose is taboo'd by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose
        to indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire--the bedclothes conspire
        of usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes,
        and your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles--you feel like mixed pickles--
        so terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss
        till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap,
        and you pick 'em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines
        to remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze,
        with hot eye-balls and head ever aching.
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams
        that you'd very much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing
        about in a steamer from Harwich--
Which is something between a large bathing machine
        and a very small second-class carriage--
And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat)
        to a party of friends and relations--
They're a ravenous horde--and they all came on board
        at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney
        (who started that morning from Devon);
He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised
        when he tells you he's only eleven.
Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad
        (by the by, the ship's now a four-wheeler),
And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names
        when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand,
        and you find you're as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks),
        crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew are on bicycles too--
        which they've somehow or other invested in--
And he's telling the tars all the particulars
        of a company that he's interested in--
It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices
        all goods from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers
        as though they were all vegetables--
You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman
        (first take off his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot,
        and they'll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree--
From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea,
        cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastrycook plant cherry brandy will grant,
        apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys--
The shares are a penny, and ever so many
        are taken by Rothschild and Baring,
And just as a few are allotted to you,
        you awake with a shudder despairing--

(The next seven lines very quickly, and try to do them all on one breath)
You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck,
and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor,
and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins,
and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep,
and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose,
and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue,
and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense
(Pause, then, slowly, with feeling)
that you haven't been sleeping in clover.

(Wearily)
But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last,
and the night has been long--ditto ditto my song--
and thank goodness they're both of them o-o-o-o-o-over!

(Lord Chancellor falls exhausted on a seat.)

I think everybody has had nights like this, so it goes over pretty well with most crowds. Universality. If you want to sing it, there are MIDIs for it that can be found by googling with "Advanced Search," but fitting the words to the tune can be a bit of a chore. Easier to check the operetta out from the library and listen to the song. And God only knows what chords to use. I've never tried to work it out. I've never been able to memorize this, but reading it off works pretty well if you can get through it without chipping a tooth.

Don Firth