Song Challenge! Part 3

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Mbo
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 07:18 PM

Help, folks! I need something to write about! Being creative is the only thing that can stop me from completely going insane!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Áine
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 07:26 PM

Dear Shambles,

Great Entry! You have been uploaded and awarded the Golden Cow Chip Award with Cleigh's Blue Fume Shield for a great blues rendition! Congratulations!

-- Áine

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Áine
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 07:32 PM

Dear Mbo,

Help is coming soon! Hang in there kid!

-- Áine

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: cujimmy
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 07:46 PM

Where did "when you were sweet 16 come from then, where did the history of the song come from.

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Áine
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 07:54 PM

********THIS CHALLENGE IS NOW OFFICIALLY CLOSED*********

Please go to SONG CHALLENGE! Part 4 by clicking here. Thanks to all CHALLENGE!RS for their submissions and let's see what you can come up with in Part 4!

-- Áine

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 11:09 AM

To the tune of "The Pursuit of Farmer Michael Hayes"

I am a little honeybee
None's ever had concerns with me
I lie low in the winter
And in summer reappear
The busiest of all the beasts
I toil all day and never cease
Until through human agency
I was forced to flee from here

It was on a pleasant afternoon
All in the merry month of June
I'd visited a buttercup
En route to a rose
When I was rudely intercepted
Hauled away and then subjected
To a physical enhancement
Whose purpose no-one knows

Arriving later at the hive
(Lucky to have fled alive)
My comrades gathered round me
And the muttering began
I was brought before the Queen
"Explain what this appendage means"
"I'm afraid your majesty
I don't believe I can"

Then up spake an elder bee
"I've seen this once before" said he
"It ended up in tragedy"
A silence then befell
"The humans use it and so they know
Everywhere we bees do go"
"Then we must strike a fatal blow"
The Queen did shrilly yell

I was sent out from the hive
For all the time that I'm alive
I may not revisit
I may not return
I must wander randomly
Hill and dale and street and lea
If ever they catch sight of me
My neighbours will me spurn

So off I buzzed, with heavy heart
My first stop was near Glendart
From there I flew to Carrigart
In the County of Armagh
From there to Belfast I did fly
The Glens of Antrim were nearby
A tail wind helped me then to fly
To the place they call Cultra

I led the men a merry chase
I stopped off at many the resting place
Dundalk, Navan, Drogheda, Naas
As south I made my way
Then westwards through Athlone I flew
Ballymote, then out by Tuam
Mayo, Connemara too
And over Galway Bay

From then I've travelled round non-stop
I'm buzzing all around the shop
It seems I've been flying
For all eternity
I've really fooled the scientists
Their previous theories they've dismissed
But on all my journeying I miss
My hive fraternity

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: MMario
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 11:21 AM

psssttttt!

shouldn't that be sorority?

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: SharonA
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 11:46 AM

How can you have a sorority with only one queen bee, silly!?! Hmmm... what would be a good Greek Bee-Fraternity name... Beta Eta Gamma (bet I ate a leg)??

derrymacash, that's such a sad story!!! Are you going to write for all the CHALLENGE!s in order? (Don't you go gettin' sacked, now) I just figured I'd write as inspiration struck me, and check 'em off my list as I go (the right-side-of-the-brain method).

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: MMario
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 11:49 AM

But all the workers are virgin FEMALES! Why would they have a fraternity?

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: SharonA
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 11:55 AM

And why would VIRGIN females have a sorority???

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: MMario
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 12:03 PM

well - many of the sorority sisters at my school CLAIMED to be virgins! (Not that anybody really believed them...)

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: SharonA
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 12:20 PM

I always thought that virgin females had convents.

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 01:20 PM

Tracking Bees

Tracking Bees, Yes my job it is just tracking Bees
And my boss he is so hard to please
I make my bread by tracking bees

Yesterday a swarm of bees they made me run away
I was messing with the Honey tray
I should have left it where it lay Oh I belive theres a better way

Where do bees all go? We don't know! Thats why we track
Get a transmitter and attach it to their back Oh Oh Oh

Tracking bees, I am making about twenty gees
And All the honey that I can squeeze
I make my bread by tracking bees

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: MMario
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 01:31 PM

Tune is Yesterday correct? Well done!

Did you know bees rip the wings off the drones and throw them out of the hive in the fall so they don't have to waste honey on them? And talk about matrilineal! A male bee does not have first generation male offspring - ever - only grandsons, great grandsons, etc...

Another piece of trivia - until she runs out of stored sperm ( a queen takes only 1 mating flight normally - but may mate multiple times during that flight - depending on species ) the production of female or male offspring is chosen by the queen...no guesswork - she knows what sex that egg is gonna be.

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 02:06 PM

Thanks MMario Yeah Bees are great. The whole "royal jelly" thing fascinates me. But I wouldn't want to be a Mr. Bee

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Áine
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 04:01 PM

Here are your re/a/wards, my dear overachievers (derrymacash and Jack the Sailor) - hahaha:

To derrymacash -- The Super Special Sandstone Sheila-Na-Gig Ocarina Award for warming the cockles and creating a special warm and fuzzy feeling in the heart of the Keeper of the Book with your song.

And to Jack the Sailor -- The Shamrock Cluster, awarded for a very high level of imagination, imagery, and/or creative use of language in your song.

Well done, both of ya!

-- Áine

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 04:39 PM

Mundane reply - fraternity just happens to rhyme with eternity.

SharonA - yep ... going for them one at a time ... except for the few I shadowed you on over the past few days!

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 01 - 06:26 PM

Well, sorority rhymes with authority, Derry!! And also sonority, which is not a real word but should be!

A

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 04:25 AM

Just in case anyone interprets my last post above as meaning that I think anyone else's reply is mundane, can I just point out that I meant MY reply would be mundane!!

(In my accent, sorority also rhymes with words such as clarity, charity, hilarity, etc. Maybe I should also admit that I know bugger all about bees and had I been aware that they are - on the whole - insects of a feminine persuausion, I might not have used the collective term fraternity. In years to come when PhD scholars are compiling vast theses on the work of Mudcat parodists, iconoclasts and acolytes of the Godess Áine, this error might take up several pages of densely argued musing!)

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 11:11 AM

It's not often there comes the ocaision
To write about bugs of the feminine persuasion
Speak for an eternity about the bug fraternity
Or with more authority about a bee sorority
Whether right or wrong, Its still a funny song

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Aidan Crossey
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 11:43 AM

No doubt people who speak with great authority
Would have utilised the collective term sorority
But I'm grateful there are those possessed of charity
Who appreciate that my keenness for sonority (thanks Amos!)
Meant that I had to speak about fraternity
To resolve the tension vis-a-vis "eternity"

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: mousethief
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 06:02 PM

I liked the Bee-tles thing, so here's another:

Revenge of the Honey Bees
tune: All My Lovin'

With my glue-gun I'll tack you
Tomorrow I'll track you
As you fly amid flowers and trees
Then as well as I can
From the back of my van
I will track all the honey ... bees.

All the honey
Bees I've ever seen
Are just funny
Blips upon my screen

Close your eyes and just listen
They're buzzin' and hissin'
Out lookin' for pollen I'm sure
Say it's gettin' too hot here
The windows are not clear
Why don't you just open the door?

All the honey
Bees came rushing in
It's not funny
Man, it hurts like sin!

Cos the bees all left stingers
In my arms and my fingers
And places I'd rather not say
And since they didn't sting you
Please say if you think you
Could call 9-1-1, right away?

All they honey
Bees got their revenge
Ain't it funny
How they knew my van

All the honey,
All the honey, woo-woo
All the honey
Bees got their revenge!

Copyright ©2001 Alex Riggle. All Rights Reserved.

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Áine
Date: 17 Aug 01 - 08:28 PM

Winners of the Golden Cow Chip Award with Guinness Crest (The Guinness Crest is awarded for causing both Harp Ribbon conditions within one song):

Revenge of the Honey Bees by mousethief

Geez, mousethief, when you're on a roll, it ain't just onion, is it? ;-) Loving your 'late-but-great' songs, my dear!

-- Áine

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 09:10 AM

In response to Áine's request (in SONG CHALLENGE! - parts 8 and 31, dated 18-Aug-01) that we in the "Catch-up Club" slow down our rate of posting new songs to past Challenge!s — AND in the interest of preserving Áine's sanity — I have decided to post no more than one past-Challenge! submission per day, or seven in one week. (So what if it takes me another month-and-a-half to catch up? I ain't in no race!!!) I hope that other Challenge!rs will also honor Áine's request.

Remember, Áine's the one who has to read EACH of these songs, figure out which award to grant it, and add it to the "SONG CHALLENGE! Winners" page... in addition to inventing and reviewing NEW Challenge!s... in addition to having a real-time life. I for one would not like to be responsible for burning her out to the point where she throws up her hands and runs away from the SONG CHALLENGE!, screaming, and never returns.

That said, here's my song for today (another in the "quirky and weird" category):


'E WRECKED A HAPPY BEE
(Tune: "Eric the Half A Bee" by Monty Python; music by Eric Idle, original lyrics by Eric Idle and John Cleese)

INTRO:
"Take 'im away! 'E wrecked the Orchestra Leader!"

ORCHESTRA LEADER:
"Get this diode off me back! I am not a bee!! ...Thenkew. Ahem: A-one, two, a-one, two, three, four..."

[Piano – introductory flourish]

LEAD STINGER [spoken to piano accompaniment]:
Laughably, entomology
Must dip in fact to have hon-ey.
But has a bee just got to be
Nixed, affixed to antenn-ee, – Just to see
If, when a bee be headed free
To knot in tree and enters, she
Would hated be, a naughty bee
Due to some human gadgetry? – Stinging!...

ALL STING:
Lawd, 'e be one tool, see:
'E wrecked a happy bee.
N - E - 1 - with - I's - can - C
'E wrecked a happy bee.

LEAD STINGER:
Is this wretch of drone stud-y
Daft? A creep? Or gone nutt-y?
Some geek on a walk-íe talk-íe?

ALL STING:
Yes!
An' 'e wrecked a happy bee!

ALL STING:
Little di-odes on middle of she,
'E wrecked a happy bee.
Oh oh oh, see see see,
'E wrecked a happy bee.

LEAD STINGER:
I loathe this vile PhD,
Bee-searching in an SUV
By tuning to her frequency,
Fol-lów-ing tardily.

ALL STING:
Fol-lów-ing tardily.

LEAD STINGER:
Very tardily.

VOICE:
Very smart-ily?

LEAD STINGER:
Not "very smart-ily."?

VOICE:
Ah!

ALL STING [quietly]:
Not so smart-ily!

[Ends with elaborate buzz-humming]
Bzz bzz bzzzzz, bz-bz bzzzzz,
Bz-bzz, bz-bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzzzzzzz....

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 09:25 AM

Correction! Under LEAD SINGER's third "paragraph", it should read:

I loathe this vile PhD

(not "hate"... this brings the line closer to the original lyric!)

Thanks! See ya tomorrow!

SharonA

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 09:49 AM

SharonA, thnk you for telling us what your intentions.

Aine,

I'm going to write them as the inspiration and free time hit me. That could be none or one or twelve in a day. Please review them at your leisure, or not at all as you choose. I really appreciate your input but I am not in any hurry. Why don't you wait till you get a few before reviewing?

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 10:10 AM

Jack: I'm writing as inspiration strikes, as well; I'm just not going to POST the results all at once. Right now I have another two songs completed, but you all are just going to have to wait to see them because Áine has asked us to slow down our rate of posting.

One problem, I've learned from experience, is that each post generates MORE posts from other songwriters. If you post 12 in a day, and if others add to even half of them, that's now at least 18 songs for Áine to look at (and more if you get multiple "piggy-back" entries in each of those 6 threads). That's more than a "few" in one day... that's more like a songbook per day! And I have a feeling that Áine is going to feel obligated to review every entry (if this past weekend is any indication).

Hey, the lady asked us for a break. She asked us to "keep 'em coming slowly", and that's what I'm going to do.

SharonA

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: Áine
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 10:52 AM

Dear SharonA - Thank you, thank you, thank you!! for wanting to save my 'sanity(?)' -- which is always in question (hahahaha)...

Attention SONG CHALLENGE! CATCHUP CREW -- Keep writing (for sure) and if you really want to post your song, DO IT -- but, PLEASE understand that I may not have time to immediately get your creation into the Songbook. Apart from my fulltime job as a professional domestic engineer, I homeschool two of my children -- and their needs come first, even before the Mudcat ;-) as much as I love you all.

Don't worry, I've got each and every SONG CHALLENGE! thread in my personal Mudcat Tracer, so I can get to them quickly and easily when I have the time to get to them. And I promise in front of Max and everybody, I will NOT throw up my hands and run screaming from the Songbook -- it's a work of the heart, and where would I be without my heart?

So, keep creating your Mudcat Songbook Masterpieces and sharing them with the world, OK?

Croch suas é! (Sing Out!)

-- Áine

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 11:44 AM

Áine: Thanks for the reassurance that we can't chase you away from the Songbook through our exuberance to write! When you said that you felt like the tigers in the fable, running around the tree and turning themselves into butter, you had me worried.

I still feel that, at least for now, I "really want to post [my] song[s]" at a rate of no more than one a day or seven in one week. After all, I don't want to "burn out" the Forum audience, either.

Keep on keepin' those kids "home-larned", Áine, and I'll see ya at the next thread when you get there!

Love and hugs and snogs and all that sappy stuff,
Sharon

P.S. – Huh? Sing out... through the crotch??? Now THERE'S a Challenge!

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 16 May 05 - 07:01 PM

Not only did I get an answer tot his challenge from Fred Dyer himself, who thought it very humorous, but we know have scientific validation of his early efforts:

BEES EQUIPPED WITH RADAR SOLVE WAGGLE DANCE CONTROVERSY, May 14
A paper published in Nature on May 12th provides new data that resolves a long-standing scientific controversy. In the 1960s, Nobel Prize winning zoologist, Karl von Frisch, proposed that honeybees use dance (the "waggle dance") as a coded message to guide other bees to new food sources. However, some scientists did not accept von Frisch‚s theory. Using harmonic radar, scientists have now tracked the flight of bees that had attended a "waggle dance" and found that they flew straight to the vicinity of the feeding site, as predicted by von Frisch. The tracks allowed the scientists to determine how accurately bees translate the dance code into successful navigation, and showed that they correct for wind drift even when en route to destinations they have never visited before.
Full story at http://www.physorg.com/news4107.html

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 17 May 05 - 08:15 AM

Nice to know Fred Does know his bees.

Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got ourselves a SWARM!

gog I love that line!

Subject: RE: SONG CHALLENGE! Part 3
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 05 - 09:18 AM

Buzz buzz buzz
That's what the honey bee does
tweedley tweedley twee
you know the bird says that
Buzz buzz buzz goes the honey bee
and tweedley tweedley twee goes the bird.

Can I have my rearch grant now, please.