Subject: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Artful Codger Date: 07 Jun 06 - 03:37 AM Lady Mondegreen popped up in the recent "Time and Circumstances" thread. Which suggested to me the following song challenge: Write a ballad about Lady Mondegreen. Now, in the DT, there is "The Ballad of Lady Mondegreen", but I think a proper ballad about this most misunderstood of ladies should follow a few rules: 1. The ballad should tell a single narrative story in multiple verses. 2. It should sound like a real ballad, not a comic piece. 3. It should contain mondegreenish misquotes of lines from other well-known songs. 4. The misquotes should make sense within the context of the Mondegreen ballad. 5. Misquotes should occur at varying places within verses. In particular, a verse should not serve mainly as a set-up for a lame pun in the final line; that is hardly a challenge, nor does it capture the spirit of authentic mondegreens. Rather, the humor should arise from borrowing and contorting fragments in convincing ways. "Reverse mondegreens" are also permissible; that is, the borrowed fragment can appear unaltered if it creates an apparent mondegreen in the ballad. This is more difficult, since not only must the intended meaning be apparent, but the mondegreen must sound like the kind of mistake a careless writer might really make (say, when using words he thinks he knows, but doesn't really. What do you call $10 words across the pond?) Following the text, please list the borrowed lines (before changes) and where they came from. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Scrump Date: 07 Jun 06 - 03:59 AM Artful Codger wrote: "...but the mondegreen must sound like the kind of mistake a careless writer might really make (say, when using words he thinks he knows, but doesn't really. What do you call $10 words across the pond?)" Not sure - malapropisms, maybe? |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: s&r Date: 07 Jun 06 - 04:49 AM What's a $10 word? Stu |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST Date: 07 Jun 06 - 05:30 AM Somewhat a propos of this, there is a Scottish musical act (from Fife, specifically) called H.M.S. Mondegreen. To be honest, I've never heard them. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Artful Codger Date: 07 Jun 06 - 06:23 AM A "$10 word" is a big, fancy word, particularly one used to show off erudition or status. "Erudition", for example. As often as not, it is used correctly (to the dismay of the listener.) So, yes, malapropism is the most likely way to form reverse mondegreens, and a $10 word misused would be a malapropism, but the two concepts are not quite equivalent, despite what my question above may seem to have implied. I'm sure you have a colorful label for this, and I doubt it's "a 5€ word". (Imagines John Cleese barking, "A palindrome??") |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Paul Burke Date: 07 Jun 06 - 06:39 AM Oh, you mean a sequipedalian word. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 07 Jun 06 - 06:54 AM My head hurts already... |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Artful Codger Date: 07 Jun 06 - 07:01 AM Ahem, SESquipedalian? Sort of. But a proper British equivalent to "$10 word" would not itself include a $10 word, as the epithet is generally voiced by people who don't know many themselves--and certainly not that one! |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Snuffy Date: 07 Jun 06 - 09:01 AM So a $10 word comes from the mouth of someone who's "swallowed the dictionary"? I don't think we Yookers have a word for it, but if you called it a "schoolteacher word" people would probably know what you meant. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Amos Date: 07 Jun 06 - 09:03 AM Sesquipedalian is purely British in origin, after the Latin; it is in the OED, and is mostly British in use -- Yanks don't go in for words more than three syllables if they can help it... A |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Flash Company Date: 07 Jun 06 - 12:14 PM My friend has got a weakness for the peeresses, Aristocrats, aristocrats, He says he loves to give them wild caresses, We think he's bats, we think he's bats, But then one day he met a titled lady, And she was hot, yes really hot, They went off to a meadow nice and shady, And like a shot, yes like a shot Lady, Lady, Lady Mopndegreen, Laid him, laid him, laid him on the green, I won't mention what she did but it was quite a bit obscene, When Lady Mondegreen turned round and laid him on the green. Nothing to do with anything, didn't follow any of the rules, but it was fun to write FC |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Nigel Parsons Date: 07 Jun 06 - 03:21 PM Amos: Yanks don't go in for words more than three syllables if they can help it Is that why you all insist on using the two word term "United States" because "America" is exceptionally multisyllabic? CHEERS Nigel |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Rikki Tikki Date: 07 Jun 06 - 04:28 PM Och, Artful, ye're oskin' the impossible, mon! Nevertheless, here is Lame Effort #1, which breaks several of your rules, if nothing else, above all the expectation that it would make any sort of sense. (It's more of a Songs of the Pogo type of effusion methinks.) It is based, of course, on Earl o' Murray, which you can easily go look up for the corresponding lines: THE LAST LAY OF LADY MONDEGREEN Ye high lambs, and ye low lambs, O where are your beans, Ye have chained the Earl Amurray To Lady Mondegreen, Away, Bazooky Hungrie, Elsewhere for frigid tay, A badger strung a widget, And for badger, hymn the sleigh. He was a flawed talent, And he paid at the shove, And the bony Earl Amurray He was the Quince Zone love, He was a flawed talent, And he fought in the ring, The bony Earl Amurray, Too tight to be a king. O-lan and his lady Lock oar and fasten down Ere three Earl Amurrays, Astounding, view the clown. Ye sly lambs, ye show lambs, Oh what is your scene? Ye have changed the early scurry For Lady Mondegreen, Away, Petunia Humpie, Aware, foredoomed, ye stay, A bad jar is the limit, And a bad jar is her lay. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Rikki Tikki Date: 07 Jun 06 - 04:57 PM Here is Even Lamer Effort #2. Here we find Lady Mondegreen in an earlier period of her late lamented life, before she got slain by the Slayers of Earl Amurray, indeed even before she dated Earl Amurray, or even tossed him a risque wink. She apparently lived in the Orkneys or someplace and got involved with something ~Not Quite Human~ ... (And yes, I admit to thread creep, but...) All but the second verse are a parody of the Child ballad, The Great Silkie O Sule Skerry. The second verse was written by Lady Mondegreen herself, in a moment of great agitation. THE GREAT STINKY OF SCHOOL CURRY An urchin whore, she spits and sings, And why she sings, baloney chin? "Little Ken, eye thy brainy father, Finesse, my land, that pits my skin." "Go back," cried Lady Mondegreen, "Go back," she cried, "umbrella day! Upon the green when but a teen My Earl Amurray died on me." Then Axel Rose at her bad feet, And a gummy guest I'm sure was he, "Here am I, thy brainy father, Although I be nasty spoiled meat. "For I am a lamb upon the land, But I am a stinky in the sea, And when I'm fouler far than sand My dealings are in School Curry." "You were no wheel," the maid replied, "You were no wheel, no decal, see? You Great Stinky of School Curry To count for naught a brain to me." Now he has snatched her perps so cold, And parched her equanimity, Saying, Give to me my Little Kenny, And tack thee up thy normalcy." "And gum shall pass a simmering day, When sin-shines hop an average clone, Then I shall toke with Little Kenny, And teach him how to skin the bone. Agnew shall marry a prude punner, And a prude punner I'm sure he'll be, And the very first tot that e'er he toots Shall toot Baywatch and scum for me. ~~~~~~~ Yes, I know, sorry, that's really, really putrid.... blame it on the rainy day here in the Northeast provinces of School Curry. ~~~~~~ |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Rikki Tikki Date: 07 Jun 06 - 05:09 PM Upon mature consideration and uffish thought, I conclude that the second verse should open: "All black," cried Lady Mondegreen, "All black," she cried, "umbrella day! Upon the green when but a teen My Earl Amurray died on me." That more purely expresses her state of deep depression at her bereavement, and at having to be a single mother on that desolate coast in bad weather with freak tides and Things coming out of the surf at her in the middle of the night claiming that they had sex with her. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Artful Codger Date: 07 Jun 06 - 06:38 PM Rikki Tikki, your lame attempts had me rolling in stitches - somehow a mixed metaphor seems appropriate here. I particularly like your uffishly reflected "All black umbrella day!" - the perfect sentiment when in the slough of despond (or in a cold November downpour near a Costco full of stew). Cheers! P.S. Er, where exactly is this spot where things will come out of the surf in the middle of the night and have sex with you? I'm getting on in years, and... Is the selchie really as great as they say? |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Rikki Tikki Date: 12 Jun 06 - 08:51 AM Hi Artful, Well, as to Things coming out of the surf at you, try Miami Beach on a hot Saturday night... To be truthful (something I usually try not to be), I was feeling rather black umbrella day because I couldn't conform to your rules, which are HARD! Checking in this AM, I was hoping someone else would do better. Herewith a refresh, in hopes that THE Lady Mondegreen song is yet to be written. (Perhaps the yet-untold tale of her secret romance with Round John Virgin while she was engaged to Earl Amurray. Mondie always did have another quiver to her bow) ... R.T. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Rikki Tikki Date: 12 Jun 06 - 09:02 AM Oh, and as regards selchies... They are HOT. Actually, no, they are COLD. But cold is hot, in this context. Or so the Eartly Nourice says, and she's really our only musical expert on the subject. If selchies were not morbid & perverted fun ("the last lay..." etc), she certainly would not have stuck around by the sea long enough to have the kid. She would have hopped a fast curragheen for the Mane Land and taken coach for Edinbro Toon. Frankly, I have always suspected Eartly Nourice's version of events to be a cover story for something else. But what? R.T. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Artful Codger Date: 12 Jun 06 - 08:13 PM If the rules weren't challenging in some way, it wouldn't be a song challenge. ;-} But are the rules really that hard? Start by collecting lines in a common meter that can be misquoted in a somewhat sensible way. Once you have a bunch, write a ballad that uses some of them. That pretty much fulfills the challenge. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Charley Noble Date: 12 Jun 06 - 08:23 PM Rikki Tikki- Really quite well done and when I sober up I'll try reading this thread again, if I can find it. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 12 Jun 06 - 08:25 PM Theoretically, easy. Practically... |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 12 Jun 06 - 08:30 PM Sorry, Charley, I think I was meant to be replying to Artful Codger, but... |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Ferrara Date: 12 Jun 06 - 10:01 PM This is a grand challenge. Which I don't intend to tackle BTW. I already have more than enough ways to use up time while leaving dozens of jobs undone.... Having low taste (or perhaps, having no musical taste at all...) I intend to learn and sing Flash Company's ditty for sure. Dreadful, FC! The guy who wrote "Funiculi, Funicula" is sitting up in his grave and shouting "Bravo." And yes, RT, your revised second verse is splendid. Such a useful phrase! There have been cold days at various Getaways when I wish I'd had that in my vocabulary. "All black umbrella day!" Very satisfying. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: A Wandering Minstrel Date: 13 Jun 06 - 08:34 AM this probably breaks all your rules but you can have fun spotting all the original songs it "borrows" from The Lay of the Lie of Lady Mondegreen It fell about the Martinmass and near the witching hour When Lady Modegreen came forth and stood without her bower And lightly stepped she south of the wall and lightly stepped she east "gae bring to me the wanton brown for 'tis a noble beast" Now woah! be off to the Black woods Now Brennan have a care! for do you see yon broad, broad road? Tis I must venture there About the hour of twelve o clock Her father he came home Frae drinkin of the blude-red wine in the streets of Huntley Town "Oh where is Lady Mondegreen Come quick my son and tell to me?" "She left me here, oh father dear, and went riding down by the Eildon tree" And these few words she spake to me as she rode upon the flood that if she met young Brennans robe she'd leave it shorter by the hood And when her father heard these words They did wound his heart full sore And sadly he did rue the day when Bill Brennan rode the moor For it was that rake and his merry band as they rode o-er the lea had met with Colonel Bogey and with him they did agree That they should hunt the little black fox Or shoot the bonny black hare Or through the woods the white hart track or the old grey wolf in his lair and it was as they homeward came all at the close of the day that they spied the ladies own true love as on the green he lay And there they have done their wicked crime with bloody sword and knife And blood has lain upon the green as they took her true loves life And the lady stood at her own front door And there she made a moan for though she waited all the day her true love ne'er came home And she would not dance she would not sing nor go playing at the ball But she has ta'en her brothers blade as it stood agen the wall And she 's gone straight to Brennans hall and shown her deadly art for betwixt the long ribs and the short she's pricked him to the heart Lie there, lie there, with your death wound And hearken unto me I shall reveal the wicked lie thy daughter told to thee For though she drove you to revenge for her lost maidenhead she could not have lain with Murray when with Mondegreen he laid! |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 14 Jun 06 - 07:44 AM Applause! Applause! Now all we need is a tune, but I suppose one could 'fake' that too... |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST Date: 15 Jun 06 - 09:55 AM refresh |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Little Robyn Date: 15 Jun 06 - 03:54 PM It just about fits the Bonny Earl of Murray tune. Also the Bitter Withy tune seems to sound right. And lots more, I'm sure. Robyn |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST Date: 19 Jun 06 - 08:04 AM Re 13 June 8:34 am: Okay, but it hasn't got any mondegreens in it (meaning pun phrases)! Can anyone do a Mondegreen Makeover on it to make it a real mondegreen ballad? |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Artful Codger Date: 19 Jun 06 - 08:49 PM A mondegreen is rarely a pun, but an unwitting aural mistake, a distortion that produces a distinct change in meaning. The humor mostly arises from our recognition that the words and meaning aren't correct, rather than because the words have a clever double meaning or lack sense - though the latter case (when sincere) adds to our derisive delight. A listener must usually have prior knowledge of the song to catch a mondegreen. Consider the case of Lady Mondegreen herself: this distorted line makes perfect sense, except that her cameo death is not preceded by her appearance anywhere earlier in the song, in actual events or, indeed, in history. Anyway, to construct a convincing mondegreen (oxymoronic though that is), overt punning should be avoided. To be most authentic, you could play a song you aren't familiar with through bad speakers at low volume, and write down what you hear, striving to make moderate sense of the iffy parts. Or you could sing a song to a young kid, having him repeat after you line by line. Not quite according to this challenge as posed, but it would probably produce a couple howlers. (Just don't howl at the kid; you don't want him to develop a complex.) |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST Date: 20 Jun 06 - 11:09 AM Sorry for the oversimplification. As one who read Sylvia Wright's original in Harpers Magazine in the 50s, and subsequently in her book "Get Away From Me With Those Christmas Gifts!", I do appreciate the fine points of what is and is not a mondegreen ... but was indulging in shorthand to get a point across. To be proper about it, you might call a mondegreen an "unwitting pun." Usually not a single word, but a mishearing of a short phrase, more or less serendipitous. Of course far too many people, knowing full well what they were doing, have have forced the mishearing process, using pun mechanisms to come up with intentional mondegreen phrases; and that has blurred the distinction for most who today have no idea where the original mondegreens came from. But yes, the "purest-of-the-pure" mondegreens (some of Wright's, but not all, e.g.) are inadvertent. All of which obscures the point I was making above. Perhaps what is needed, puristically speaking, is to put the 13 June 8:34 am ballad through a low-powered speaker and, fortuitously, misunderstand it line by line, in order to make it into a mondegreen ballad. Not my bag of tricks. But someone ought to try. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Geordie-Peorgie Date: 20 Jun 06 - 07:16 PM Aah once entered a newspaper competition to write the funniest pun! Aah sent in ten absolute stunners thinking that aah would probably win with at least one But No Pun In Ten Did!!!!! |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: A Wandering Minstrel Date: 21 Jun 06 - 07:57 AM Er Guest, there is at least one Mondegreen, the first line of the third verse is corrupted from "And woe be unto thee Blackwood" from The Ballad of Jamie Douglas |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Rikki Tikki Date: 23 Jun 06 - 10:04 AM Headline: MONDEGREEN BALLAD FOUND! PUBLIC OFFICIALS NERVOUS Hitherto a deeply held secret, Lady Mondegreen's maiden name before her marriage for money to doddering old Lord Mondegreen can now be revealed. Heretofore it had not been thought politic to discuss this, as her early career in a nearby county was grievously notorious. Now, however, who cares? Sir Fencible J. Childproof says of it in his classic collection (in which it appears as #84), "The ballad is wrongly said by Stour in Scott's Classic Ballad Stamp Catalog, 1932, to derive from an ancient lay lampooning urban remediation. We know from other sources that it is, in fact, a peasant effusion dwelling upon dating practices, once much acted upon the stage, but since fallen into desuetude, from which it has had to be removed with fire-tongs." In this instructive doggerel of the Olden Tyme such as amused our simple-minded ancestors, we unearth a story of great decrepitude. The future Lady Barbara, a chubby girl, was under a compulsion to binge and purge, amounting to full-blown archaic anorexia, before any emotional involvement. She cooked and ate pie and pudding, mostly of the native blueberry; an archeoculinary study has revealed unusual quantities of the fruit in her natal environs. Though she scraped a living selling the said berries, out of a primal fear of starvation, she denied them to her suitors. One such suitor was the Willie who features in this ballad. He has provisionally been identified as the lad William Shakespeare (pre-plays), with whom she spent innumerable nights cracking peanuts and telling off-color jokes. Rumors of young Shakespeare's death (of love for the eponymous Barbara) at that juncture proved false, but in the fullness of time came true. The future Lady Mondegreen's deplorable attitude is, it goes without saying, staunchly traditional. Further commentary will be interspersed among the lines below. LADY BARBARA MONDEGREEN (née ALLEN) (Mychild #84) In starlit gown her pie was scorned, [townsfolk felt it was sub-par, as pie] Her buzz a fair-laid felon, [rumors of her affair with a criminal were rife] May Devery's voice cried, "Will! Away!" [her waiting-maid, ever alert] Her game: blueberry sellin'. He sent a serpent down her gown, [a not infrequent courting tease] What place (or three), no tellin', "My master stickily beats his gums, Your famous blueb'rry smellin'." Then roly-poly she got stuffed, [her binge stage; not pretty] Went roly-poly nigh him, And all she said when she got spare, [just as well, perhaps, that the ballad omits to dwell upon the pool of her "You're tan; I think you're dryin'." vomit on his floor] "Oh yes, my schtick's arithmetic, [It appears he was the local schoolmaster] And death is in misspellin', Go-getter, go-getter I never can be, If I can't have blueb'rry puddin'." She burned his case of alcohol, [though anorexic, she was a teetotaler] Her breath was him bombshellin', [she had not brushed her teeth since noshing on the pie] "Air well, air well, ye maiden small! Hard heart! No blueb'rry puddin'." As she was talkin' on the phone, She spied his gold horse comin', [a horse of a finer color, traditional sign of upscale living] "Play 'round, play 'round that gold, gold horse That I mistook while slummin'." [in proletarian pride she disdains his tasteless wealth] The more mistook, the more inept, She fell deep in the plumbin', [the earliest known ballad reference to flush toilets] "Oh trick me out, and cram my dome, [she regrets having been a C-minus student] For I am fructifyin'." [puzzling survival, suggesting some outré aspect of archaic plant worship] "Oh motor, motor me to bed, And shake it like a sparrow, My silly guy offed (big relief), I'll try Sal's dye tomorrow. [she plans to change her hair color for the funeral] In honored breath, dead attaché, She egged a bee flayed by him, [Will was known for his unfortunate cruelty to insects] And scored a penny dove ashtray [note tourist trade item readily available in nearby shop] That seeded Erin's island. [survival of ancient record indicating first arrival of vegetation in Ireland, 6,004,719 b.p.e.] They scurried to the old sweatshop, [indication of proto-industrial development in ballad-land] They hurried him right by her, [gender inequality raises its ugly head] A bomber gave her a red prose push, [she had not yet attained her later perfect purple prose. The bomber is unidentified (Guy Fawkes?)] And glommed her knave, a Buyer. [Shakespeare's boyhood occupation; he was in gloves] Skidoo, skidoo to the Research Tower, [the building where new ballads were ritually produced] Thursday, good-O! or prior, [she was double-booked for the party that afternoon] Calcined astride, a true Big Shot, [in this incompletely understood passage she evidently became an equestrian statue] Tied red bows round her Buyer. [she indulges in the early ritual of gift-wrapping the beloved so she can open him later] |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Artful Codger Date: 24 Jun 06 - 06:19 AM Why does no one give to me A perfect mondegreen, do you suppose? Ah no, it's just my luck to get Some purple prose. --Dorothy Podger |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST Date: 24 Jun 06 - 08:31 AM Speechless. Not very encouraging of you. Granted I've still not been able to come up with something that meets all the criteria. Best I can do. Someone else will have to try. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton Date: 24 Jun 06 - 05:09 PM Not a Mondegreen but a lovely screw-up. Some young lady sang the Riddle Song. The last line she sang was: "I gave my love a baby that had no end." A member of the audience commented, "That's the only way to have 'em!" ******************************************************************************* He rode forthwith in resplendant clouds, A lay demon de-greened. (A novice off-the-road vehicle driver ran over a suburban lawn) (Sorry 'bout that) Frank |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Artful Codger Date: 24 Jun 06 - 07:06 PM Er, sorry, Rikki, my little stanza wasn't meant as a direct commentary on your offering, which I found very entertaining. But the phrase "perfect purple prose" immediately brought to mind Dorothy Parker's famous poem "One Perfect Rose", and what inveterate punster could resist? My apologies to you, and to Dorothy. |
Subject: Rikki - great work! From: JesseW Date: 22 Aug 06 - 02:20 PM Wow. All I can say is Wow. I'll never be able to hear Barbara Allan ever again without thinking of blueberrys. I loved the "translations", too. Great work. |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Pam Date: 27 Sep 07 - 11:32 PM The Papaya Song - Growing up I remember my mom used to sing along to the radio. There was one song in particular, performed by Perry Como, or someone like that, that always puzzled me because between each line, there were lots of "papayas". There was also a guy named "Hugh" mentioned in the song. Here is the song: I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter, papaya papaya and make believe it came from Hugh I'm gonna write words oh so sweet, pa papaya There gonna knock me off my feet, pa papaya A lotta kisses on the bottom I'll be glad I gottom I'm gonna smile and say I hope Hugh's feelin better papaya papaya and close with love the way Hugh do I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter pa papaya and make believe it came from Hugh |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Murphy Date: 28 Sep 07 - 09:05 AM In truth I swear and raise my hand I still quite can't just understand Can this compare in visual form To something seen outside the norm When eyes deduce a false conclusion On viewing an optical illusion? |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: GUEST,Frank L. Ludwig Date: 31 May 10 - 09:42 AM Hi, I'm not sure if anyone follows this thread any longer. I just came across the link, and I think you might enjoy a ballad I wrote a few months ago. The Ballad of Lady Mondegreen 'Oh highlands mine and lowlands, tell me where you have been? You've slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen.' King James caressed the corpses: 'Was all my love in vain? My world is dead, I feel like a miteside in the rain.' Her heart was light with passion under her stiff baleen: amongst the dappled roses walked Lady Mondegreen. This must have been the happiest day of her carefree life, because King James had told her that he would kill his wife. The bonny birds were singing in oak and chestnut tree, the sun dispersed so brightly his rays on land and sea, the jasmine spread its fragrance, and soon she would be queen: a spring in every step had Lady Mondegreen. The Lady was a tomboy when no one looked, and as she rode out in the country, she swapped her satin dress for her beloved kilt which her lover disapproved of in strong terms – however, the girl remained unmoved. 'I want to meet the Lady', the King said to his aide, but no more in the palace, because I am afraid the Queen might smell a rodent. Fetch Huntly, he will ride out to the Earl of Moray where I shall meet my bride.' Huntly received his orders: 'Go tell the Earl I need his house; first fetch the Lady from Rathven, and make speed! I want her kilt torn, mangled! Then bring a candle and, once lit, a cross. His faith will serve me well, my friend!' The loyal Huntly saddled his horse; he was not keen on this foul task but hurried to Lady Mondegreen. He brought her to the Earl who obliged and took his coat, and then he grabbed the Lady and cut her pallid throat. He gently lit a candle and held it in one hand while stabbing with the other the Earl, the monarch's friend. He cut his face severely, and what he – there's no doubt – did to the Lady's body I shall not write about. The King arrived in very high spirits at the scene to greet the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen. 'What happened?', he lamented as he broke down and cried. 'I carried out your orders', his trusted friend replied. 'I want her killed, torn, mangled! Then bring a candle, and one slit across his face will serve me well, my friend!' - 'Oh highlands mine and lowlands, tell me where you have been? You've slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen.' © Frank L. Ludwig (By the way, the miteside in the rain is something that took me decades to solve. It was Tim Curry in the Rocky Horror Picture: 'Everywhere it's been the same, like I'm outside in the rain.') |
Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Lady Mondegreen From: Charley Noble Date: 31 May 10 - 04:08 PM Frank- Good work but such a sad tail! Charley Noble |
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