Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona

Subject: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Ivan
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 09:26 AM

As topical songs have a short shelf life I thought I'd better post this one quick.

Shopping With Winona        - Lyrics by Ivan McKeon
(Written to the tune of "Fields of Petreloo" by Harvey Kershaw)

There are songs of outlaw heroes, Robin Hood and all the rest
Who broke the law for the common good, injustice to protest
Now in the 21st century a brand new hero has come to pass
But it's not some macho outlaw dude just a wee small winsome lass.
Some think it brave to run with bulls through the streets of old Pamplona
But you'll get more thrills in Beverley Hills when you're shopping with Winona.

Now you try on this and you try on that, mix and match to find what's best
Until you've scattered clothes about the room and it really looks a mess
How's a girl to know just how she looks with this great big plastic tag
It's a good job that you thought to bring some scissors in your bag.
Now if you're confused about which are the store's and those of which you are the owner
Just stuff them all in your big holdall when you're shopping with Winona.

The shop staff are a constant pain, they follow you around here
You wonder is it worth your while for the bargains that you found here
Now that you've nearly made the door, you feel a little bolder
Just one more stride and you're safe outside 'til there's a hand upon your shoulder.
Well of course I haven't paid for that, I took it as a loaner,
'cos you only pay on a rainy day when your shopping with Winona.

Now they want to send this girl to jail to spend three long years inside there
But to those who'd label her a thief may a add this one small Ryder
On the TV set just the other day I heard Bush and Blair remark it
That the future of the world depends on a genuine FREE market.
Now celebrities can get into trouble, do you recall Eric Cantona?*
You don't need Kung-fu tricks if you get your kicks from your shopping with Winona.

Some think it brave to run with bulls through the streets of old Pamplona
But you'll get more thrills in Beverley Hills when you're shopping with Winona.

* Eric Cantona - french soccer player (now an actor) who infamously launched a kung-fu attack on a spectator who was barracking him. (Yes, I do know that it it doesn't rhyme with Winona if you pronounce it correctly).

FREE WINONA ( Where can I get one?)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Ivan
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 09:28 AM

Whoops! The tune is called Fields of Peterloo not Petreloo. Use any tune that fits if you don't know it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 10:38 AM

Some things aren't funny. Only pathetic.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Big Tim
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 11:56 AM

Agreed GUEST. How can anyone think someone else's misery is a suitable subject for a "funny" song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Joan from Wigan
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 12:06 PM

Guest and Big Tim - a lot of comedy is based on poking fun at other people's misery. And a lot of people are only able to deal with misery by making a joke out of it. Lighten up!

Ivan, I think your song is great!

Joan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 12:11 PM

More than half of our song challenges violate the strict criteria above.

I have laughed about the song.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 12:24 PM

Winona Ryder is one of my favourite actresses, partly cos she's got that certain style that appeals to me and partly cos she's had the good taste to avoid the usual "sex goddess" route to stardom. The movies she's been in have mostly been interesting and often quite intelligent. As an actress she's got a lot of class.

Her shoplifting problems are quite sad indeed, and indicate that she's got some psychological problem. I knew a girl once who eventually got arrested for shoplifting (unlike Winona she shoplifted very cheap and unimportant items at inexpensive stores...a mere few dollars worth). The judge asked her why she had done it, and she said "Because nobody loves me." She was quite serious. That was why she did it...to fill some kind of emotional emptiness she was feeling.

I suspect that is why Winona's been doing it too...because of an emotional emptiness. Maybe she subconsciously wanted to get caught. I think that is often the case with people who commit these sort of crimes. They feel somehow to blame for something (not being good enough?), and feel they deserve punishment, so they go out and do things which will eventually get them in trouble with the law, so they can be punished. They usually have not reasoned it out on any conscious basis, but just act according to the compulsion. (Winona has enough money to buy all the clothes she could want...so it's not a rational decision for her to shoplift, it's an emotional decision.)

You see children behaving this way too, quite often. Getting themselves in trouble.

So, like I said, it's sad.

Be that as it may, that song's got some funny lines in it. I've got no objection to that.

- LH

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 12:33 PM

It is a brilliant song. The rhymes are terrific (if I could think of a North American equivalent of Eric Cantona, it would be perfect). Hats off (tags in!)

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Big Tim
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 02:07 PM

It's a crap song. To those who find it funny I say: if it was one of your family or friends who was the subject, I doubt that you'd be amused.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: GUEST,Willie-O
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 02:16 PM

Winona's just lucky there's an ongoing national panic, or she'd be this year's OJ Simpson.

I enjoy her filmwork very much. In fact I'll go out of my way to see any movie she appears in.

And I thought the song was funny.

Sorry, Tim. I'm just full of contradictions.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Dani
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 02:18 PM

The song is hilarious!

The REAL sadness, though, and maybe then the real hilarity, come from the fact that people follow this story. I saw a slideshow on a 'real' news site that followed all the outfits she'd worn to court appearances.

So I'd venture to say it needs a verse to put all the rest of us in OUR places.

Or another song that shows us how silly we are to take up bandwidth and brain cells with a story like this!

Dani

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 04:00 PM

Dani - Right on!!! People, heal thyselves, and take note of the gigantic beam in thine own eye...

Willie-O - This year's OJ??? YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING! Winona did not beat her spouse repeatedly and then murder him, fer chrissake...

However, your contradictions are a sign of mental health in my opinion... :-)

As I said once before, she is no threat to society. I love her films too, but I didn't go to see the one with Adam Sandler cos I can't stand his...

- LH

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Snuffy
Date: 11 Nov 02 - 07:55 PM

"if it was one of your family or friends who was the subject, I doubt that you'd be amused."

I don't suppose Dubya's amused about the parodies attacking his friends in Enron, etc. Does that mean we shouldn't sing them. either?

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 08:38 AM

I am so ashamed that I find this song funny...

Charley Noble, who's going shopping!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Willie-O
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 10:17 AM

Dammit, I wrote a well-considered erudite response to LH's admonishment. But it went into the ether.

You are right, I was of course referring to the media frenzy, not the event itself. She IS lucky it's not a slow news month.

Actually the whole thing plays like one of her movies. Cute, likeable anti-hero gets herself in a jam. Stay tuned for the surprise ending. Compared to other stuff that's going on in the world, this IS light entertainment. Notice how all the news reports, if they feel a need to sum up her career, say "star of the 'Girl, Interrupted'?"

One ending that is not likely is three years in the pen, or two, or one. What, is the hangin judge going to have to send a warning to other celebrity shoplifters? I think it'll be settled with a lot of cash and probation. Hope Saks doesn't suffer too much from their losses.

W-O

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: GUEST,baillie
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 11:39 AM

Bloody good song, what's big tims problem? does he need a sense of humour transplant?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Nov 02 - 01:33 PM

Heh! Heh! Well, all I can say is "FREE WINONA!" I await her next movie with anticipation. If I were the clothing store, I would not have had her charged, I would have had her put all the stuff on her charge card and sent her off with a smile, saying, "Come again soon!"

It's not like she couldn't afford it. :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Big Tim
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 12:40 PM

You chuckle "Heh! Heh! Heh!", as Winona Ryder, probably, suffers and sobs.

Isn't it hilarious? I'm laughing all the way to the Swiss bank.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Ivan
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 02:23 PM

I apologize to all those who were offended by this song. I sort of thought that folkies understood irony.
As far as "you wouldn't think it funny if it was a member of your own family" - well the truth is that no joke is funny when its personal, so are we not supposed to have any at all?
Anyway, I'm comparing her to Robin Hood which is a good thing isn't it (unless you're the sheriff of Nottingham).
I think the store was stupid and belligerent for bringing the whole thing to court. I'd have found her innocent myself if I'd been on the jury (clearly i'm not a suitable jury candidate).
Sorry again. I only meant to poke a bit of fun at the whole stupid case as well as have an excuse to think up some terribly convoluted rhymes.
Winona, if you're reading this - I think you're great.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: boab d
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 02:27 PM

great song and if you've never felt the inclination to laugh at others misfortune then whats the point of having unfortunate people. lighten up its only a joke

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Peter T.
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 02:45 PM

Don't listen to them Ivan, it is a brilliant song. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 03:01 PM

Look, Big Tim, I love Winona Ryder so much that I don't care what she does. My love for Winona is unconditional. I kid you not. I would much prefer that she had not been dragged through the courts.

- LH

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Big Tim
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:42 PM

Peace breaks out. Thanks guys.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Just Amy
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 05:07 PM

Funny song and like Ms. Ryder it will be gone in a day or 2.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: GUEST,MAG at work
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 07:35 PM

Since she obviously could buy anything in Saks -- or ASK them for it in exchange for promo -- she's got a klepto problem, which goes hand in hand with certain other syndromes of waiflike females. like anorexia. The whole thing WAS handled badly from start to finish.

AND, can you imagine $6000 of stuff fitting in a HAT? What on arth was it?? diamond-studded scarves?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Big Tim
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:59 AM

I can't see that it was handled badly. She committed serious theft and had to be stopped and "punished". Her high public profile shouldn't mean that she be treated preferentially. I have no problem with that, I just don't find it funny, sorry.                        

I work for Safeway and I've seen people prosecuted for taking things worth only a few pounds. If someone steals a bottle of whisky, alcohol being one of the most commonly stolen lines, retailing at £25, the profit being £1.50, the store has to sell about another 16 bottles of the stuff simply to make up the loss.

Bob Dylan says that all his songs end with the message "good luck", there's none of that compassion in Shopping with Winona.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: MAG
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 09:29 PM

And I have witnessed grocery stores screaming at elderly shoplifters on fixed incomes who were starving. Just what is the point here?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: GUEST,FIELDS OF PETERLOO
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 07:25 PM

Dear All,

Does anyone know where I can find the tune "Fields of Peterloo" (?Harvey Kershaw) on the Internet? This has been suggested by Ivan McKeon as a suitable tune to accompany "Shopping With Winona".

IAN RIPPEY 17.11.2002

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Shopping With Winona
From: Big Tim
Date: 17 Nov 02 - 03:43 AM

No, and even if I did, I wouldn't tell you!