Lyr Add: Brown Is the Shit (Stephen L. Suffet)

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 10:06 PM

Ah, I just love Steve!

Hardi is in stitches.

~S~

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:59 PM

Áine, if you haven't already done so, search for "suffet" in the DT. He has written quite a few good ones. (I just don't care for this one - too passive/aggressive, and I've expended a lot of effort trying to recognise and slay that particular beast in my own personality.)

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Áine
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:52 PM

Dear Steve,

I admit, I initially looked at this thread expecting some kind of rant, and I was pleasantly (yes, fellow 'Catters, pleasantly) surprised to find your song. Now, I can't say that your poetic prowess is Grade A (yet); however, I got the point of your song and I like the idea behind it.

Come on, 'Catters, don't get hung up on a pretty innocuous four letter word -- one that I'm fairly sure most of you use as an invective at least once a day -- read Steve's song over a few times, and I think you'll understand what he's trying to say. Really, what word would you expect him to use -- 'poo'??

Steve, as a mother of four, a person who is owned by two dogs and four cats, a person who tends a garden, and a former legal secretary, I've had to deal with enough shit, real AND euphemistic, to understand your song. I hope you keep writing -- you've got a way with words, my son! ;-)

All the best, Áine

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:48 PM

Once a year, my co-op's Garden Committee fertilizes. The stench is unreal - I live on the first floor and bear the brunt of it. But then we have the most beautiful gardens to enjoy all year round. Wedding parties come in for photographs; children have birthday parties; graduations, first communions, memorial services, concerts, spontaneous song circles and parties. Marriage proposals and divorce agreements have been finalized there. Multiple cats, dogs, turtles, birds, hamsters, etc. lie interred in it. The place is heaven. So I put up with a little shit once in a while.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:47 PM

Forgive me, Steve, but if I got pissed off enough to feel the sort of things in your song, I wouldn't feel much like singing, and I don't think I'd want my friends around if I did sing that one. Shit splatters when you fling it hard enough.

Well, I wrote one that has this chorus:
Oh, I'm the one who'll tell you what is right and what is wrong
And if you don't agree, you are a jerk
It would be a far, far better place if I were put in charge
I'm the only one who knows the way the world should work
...but I had my sense of humor engaged at the time. (And maybe folks mostly ignored the thread where I posted it because the humor wasn't that evident.)

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:35 PM

-I dont like your song i think its silly.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:35 PM

Yeah. Those who insist on perfection are inevitably disappointed, and I guess that includes me.

Yet the enlightened see perfection all around them...not insisting...

Enlightenment is clearly some way off at this point, at least as far as I'm concerned.

- LH

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:32 PM

I meant until the next good scrape comes along. Thirty years a teacher and I still can't get those pesky little subjects and verbs to agree. How am I ever going to get people to do the same?

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:28 PM

Just remember that I wrote this without any particular individual in mind. It is neither biographical nor autobiographical, and yet it can apply to any of us at times. Maybe we can see our own selves speaking with the voice of the singer; maybe we can't. But we all have the capacity to intend good and turn out being hurtful, especially when we get caught up in the passions of the moment. And then, if we are fundamentally of people of good will, our inclination is to withdraw. That is until the next good scrape come along.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:22 PM

Point well taken Steve.

Subject: RE: Brown Is the Shit
From: Jeep man
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:16 PM

How did Mudcat get this low? Jeep

Subject: Brown Is the Shit
From: Suffet
Date: 07 Jun 01 - 07:44 PM

BROWN IS THE SHIT

Words: Stephen L. Suffet © 2001
Music: RED IS THE ROSE (trad)

Brown is the shit, my flowers grow in it,
And without it I could not plant my garden,
But at times my shit will smell, like the furnaces of Hell,
And for that I humbly beg your pardon!

I came to sing a song and to help this world along,
And maybe add my voice to the choir,
But when I open up my mouth, the shit comes pouring out,
And that isn't what I desire.

I simply cannot say how I went astray,
I only wanted to be helpful,
I never meant to hurt, nor to sling around the dirt,
But I guess I wasn't very careful.

So now I will shut up before I add more smut,
To a world that's already sullied,
Don't ask for my advice, or expect me to be nice,
And I'll be not the bully nor the bullied.

Brown is the shit, my flowers grow in it,
And without it I could not plant my garden,
But at times my shit will smell, like the furnaces of Hell,
And for that I humbly beg your pardon!



Note: I wrote this song without any particular individual in mind.

--- Steve