In this song, the aunt describes her nephew (who has gone missing) to an ace private eye.  The song also needed to contain reference to Greek gods, and the aunt is a Latvian countess.  Again, I can not stress enough that I do not create the plots for these shows:

HE’S AWFULLY TALL
WITH CURLY HAIR
SHAVEN FACE
WITH SKIN SO FAIR
THAT WHEN YOU CARESS IT
YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE STROKING A CHILD

HIS CHEST IS BROAD
HIS LEGS ARE LONG
HIS WAIST IS TIGHT
HIS ARMS ARE STRONG
AND WHEN THEY HOLD YOU
THEY MAKE YOUR WHOLE BODY GO WILD

OH HOW HE’S GROWN
FROM A LAD TO A TALL, CHARMING MISTER
AND WHO’D HAVE KNOWN
THAT HE’D BE THE SON OF MY SISTER

HIS EYEBROWS ARE DARK
HIS PUPILS ARE BLACK
THERE’S A LITTLE BROWN MARK
ON THE SMALL OF HIS BACK
AND WHEN YOU BLOW ON IT
YOU’LL SEE HOW HE REALLY GETS RILED

A GOD ON EARTH
AND A NEW GOLDEN AGE IS UPON US
AND SINCE HIS BIRTH
HE’S BEEN OUR FAMILY TREE’S OWN ADONIS

HIS EYES WHEN THEY SMILE
HIS LIPS WHEN THEY KISS
THE LOOK ON HIS FACE
WHEN IT’S BRIMMING WITH BLISS
WELL I’VE TOLD YOU A LOT
BUT THERE’S ONE THING LEFT TO DESCRIBE

‘CAUSE IF YOU HAD SEEN US
YOU’D THINK YOU SHOULD WEAN US
THERE’S SOMETHING BETWEEN US
THAT MAKES ME HIS VENUS

IT’S THE SIZE AND THE STRENGTH
AND THE SHAPE AND THE LENGTH OF HIS
EARLOBE

Just to Sing from Leann Schuering on Vimeo.

p.s. the woman who originally sang this song was Welsh.  That’s really no excuse for my singing it with any accent other than my own American one, but when the shoe fits…

FIONA:

Follow your heart, be brave and be bold,
Live for your art, I wish I’d been told.
There’s one life to live and the one there to live it is you.

The road that’s been tried is never as true,
The path that’s uphill is the one to pursue,
The end might be further, but Sadie, just think of the view.
So follow your heart and I promise you’ll know what to do.

SADIE:

Grandpa’s aloof and afraid, but secure,
Mother once glimmered, but now she’s obscure,
And grandma’s advice seems so sage and so pure,
So I’ll have to forge my path.

I’ll follow my heart, etc…

A pork-pie hat
I’ve got one of those!
A bump on a log
I could find that!
A laboratory rat – oh! –
And the toilet where he sat – ugh! –
And a perspicacious insight on a blog.
Oh come on, that doesn’t even exist!

A Welsh nun’s habit
Why, there’s one in my closet!
Some live New Hampshire Mooses
Mooses? It’s ‘Meese’!
Hum a tune by Milton Babbitt,
Eat a prune with pickled rabbit,
Which is lovely if you dab it in its juices.

REFRAIN:

Yes, we’ll persist on this list
And we really must insist
That we not just get the gist or the brunt.
There’s no point to resist
So enlist and assist
‘Cause how could we exist without a hunt?

A brassiere – ooh! – from Zaïre – ugh! -
Which I fear, we must be clear
Isn’t worth a point if its clasping joint is unlinked.

A chronology of astrology
With a catalogue of terminology
Which you’ll enhance with a dance where each stance
Takes a clear position on the superstition -
Be it haughty, naughty, thoughty,
Brainy, grainy, zany,
Easy, breezy, sleazy -
Please-y, be succinct.

Oh perfect! – What? – That was my junior thesis!

REFRAIN

A pork-pie hat that’s made of real pork,
A bump on a frog on a log that’s a stump,
A soap-box sports-car, a Snow White dwarf star,
A minor key cantata on a chicken enchilada,
It’s so insane and so inane to wrack a brain just to obtain
The many items on this list.

And if we grunt, it’s no affront – it’s quite a stunt that we confront
And to be blunt, we can’t exist
Without a hunt!

Here’s my crack at the genre:

Hey there,
You at the bar,
Pour me another… one of these
‘Cause I’m in the mood to remember
The night when my man went away.

Well, I guess you’d have called him a drifter,
He just drifted right into my heart,
There was never much to him,
No good to pursue him
So why then did I ever start?

Hey there, so how ‘bout that drink?
I’ve got another verse to sing
About a cool autumn night in September,
The night when I first met my man,

He was a liar, a cheat, and a scoundrel,
But I had so little to lose,
I thought I could right him, refine, and delight him,
The night when I first hatched my plan.

Oh how I tried so to keep him from trouble,
But I couldn’t keep trouble from him,
‘Cause when trouble’s a mind to, it always will find you,
Like the night when I first met my man.

Well, I guess you’ve have called him a bastard,
Well I guess I’d have called him one too.
But when you’ve tried hard to hone him,
You feel like you own him,
And love is the cost that’s come due.

And on the night when he finally left me,
The law picked him up in a fray,
So that was his way out, and I lost my payout,
The night when my man went away.

So I’ll think of him when I feel lonely,
And I’ll think of him when I feel blue,
But I’ll never regret that I once cast a bet on
The best damned man I ever knew.

Hey there,
The sun’s comin’ up.
It’s gonna be a bright and fine day.
But oh, how the moon was an ember,
The night when my man went away.

Some girls have mothers who drag them to soccer games
Hooting and howling, galore,
Then there are others who thrust their girls on the stage,
And wait in the wings as their ingénue sings,
And then rush them out the stage door.

Oh how nice it would be
If my mom would do that to me,
But rather than preening, routinging, and primping,
My mother sees me as ripe for the pimping.
So how’s a plain maiden, maternally laiden,
Expected to act like a whore?

Mother you are dreaming,
Mother, I am screaming,
Men at banks will guarantee
That they don’t want a girl like me.

Mother I am trying,
But Mother, I am dying,
How I wish that you could see
The lure you want is just not me.

This is my second try at writing a real Disney-esque ballad. The first is here.

Ted’s lyrics:

Emma: Alone in my room, where it’s cold,
I feel ideas burning.
Alone in my room, there’s sunshine,
from the minds of great thinkers.

I sit happy there, in the stale air
Where my only care is for theory.
And here I walk on a tortoise stalk,
On this isle so bleak and dreary.

I miss Hyde Park, I miss the snow,
I miss Hyde Park, Professor’s Row.

The Quad with it’s faux Gothic gates,
The Reg and the late night debates.
Take me home from this tropical bay
To my city gray.

Trip: Out here in the sun, where it’s warm
Cool off, you’re overheating.
Out here in the sun, we have a chance
To live as God’s creatures.

This is no dead rock – it’s chocablock,
All around, life is revolving,
And here we walk on our tortoise stalk,
Down an aisle where we’re evolving.

Embrace my heart, embrace my soul,
Embrace my heart, lose all control.

Our minds in wide open space,
The world is a fine nesting place.
Shake away your tropical blue,
I love you.

E: Embrace your heart?
T: Embrace my soul!
E: But how to start?
T: Oh you will know

Both: We’re like minds about our affection.
We’re each other’s natural selection.
Wherever we roam, we are home.

Prof: I was just sure when I went into this field that I would quickly rise to the top and soon be flocked by beautiful young admirers. But somehow, it just never worked out that way.

Oh the many hours that I spent pouring o’er my microscope
Oh the prospects dour, and yet, faced with doubt, in spite I’d hoped
That just one final chemical reaction
Would finally lead to my long sought for satisfaction…

I’ve always seemed to have trouble capitalizing on my superior intellect. Why I even remember back in college…

I saw this girl in my class one day
Let me tell ya’ pal — she was quite a gal
I said “Would you like to talk DNA?”
It was a real good line – it worked so very fine.

We met up in the afternoon to study chapter six.
I thought that she was sure to swoon — we’d be the next double helix!

We talked transfection, we talked transduction,
Conjugation, *replication*
I puckered my lips to try some suction and
She said her goodbyes,
So No Belle, and No Nobel Prize.

TA: But certainly the situation must have improved when you got to graduate school?

Prof: Well, not exactly…

There was this girl in my lab with me,
She was quite a dish — she had all you’d wish,
Style and flair and a Ph.D.
I could sense romance – I shot her a glance.

I showed her my experiment, she’d see I was a pro.
I chose deadly bacteriants to see how large they could grow.

She said, “My, isn’t that awfully precarious?”
“Babe, there is not to fear — I’m not some dufus here.”
I gave her a vile and asked, “Could you carry this?”
It splashed right in her eyes,
So No Belle and No Nobel Prize.

TA: But sir, I thought you nearly won the Nobel Prize at one point. What happened?

Prof: Well, let’s see…

There was this broad on the prize committee
Such a stuffy dame – it seemed such a shame.
I looked real close, and she seemed kinda pretty,
But she was so uptight, I had to be polite.

I gave my presentation on rare eukaryotes.
Much to my grand elation, it seemed I’d carry the votes.

I told this broad my work was real ethereal.
She seemed quite aloof, she required more proof.
When I said, “Would you like to see my genetic material,”
She kicked me in the thighs.
So No Belle and No Nobel Prize.

But the worst accident I ever had was meeting that hideous Professor Anna Innana. She has always stood in my way.

Anna: Now you’ve heard it from the source
From the big mouth of the horse.
He says I stood in his way,
Well, it wasn’t quite like that per se.

He was always hoping and pining for
A girl to fall into his lap, so you see that’s why
I was always running and trying to
Prevent yet another mishap with this hopeless guy.

He thinks he’s smooth, he thinks he’s cool
Well he’s as charming as a mule.
Nobel Prize! Well I declare!
He couldn’t win the science fair.

Him: This wretched shrew, she was always somewhere near
Her: The only thing on my mind was how to spare womankind!
Him: But then again, I can hardly blame the dear.
Her: Every discovery meant some poor girl’s recovery.

Him: She thought I was pursuing her, I must have drove her mad.
Her: What a chauvinist pig, I swear he almost drove me mad.
Him: Without my even wooing her, she’d seen I was quite the lad
Her: How could you dare, you unbearable, terrible cad you are!

Him: Finally I said, “Look, enough’s enough my dear”
Her: I’d had all that I could take,
Both: I’ve got my work to do
Him: And I’m sure you do to.

I’ve got to hurry back to my chromosome
I’ve found a new allele!
Her: What a schlemiel he was!
Him: She’s No Belle, but I’ll have my Nobel Prize
Her: Oh, how I despise him

Him: She’s no Belle but I’ll have my Nobel Prize!
Her: He’s No Belle and he’ll have no Nobel Prize!

I wrote music for 5 of the songs and lyrics for two.  Here’s one song that I wrote both music and lyrics for, called “Finally I’ll Find the Truth”.  It’s sung by a sexy young French foreign exchange student who’s come to the University of Chicago to learn Philosophy the real way.

In France, we have such zest for life,
Our boulevards lined with romance,
But now I seek the rest from life –
A firm philosophical stance.
I’ll leave love behind for the life of the mind,
And find the truth here.

Gone are my nights of passion and bliss,
All that is just for the birds,
No more do I yearn for a passionate kiss,
My passion is only for words.
I’ll tell love, “Adieu,” and I’ll find my milieu
With the truth here.

The games boys play fill me up with ennui,
But here men have brains, so who cares if they’re small and scrawny?

So, now I’m here to pursue without fear
My questions and quand’ries and queries,
I’ll toil away, reading all the day,
for what else can one do in libraries?
I’ll go hit the books and won’t care ’bout my looks,
I’ll work on my proof and remain prim and couth,
While finally finding the truth!

Professor: “But French philosophy has such a rich history of great minds. Why would you want to give that up to come here?”
Emma: “Oh, French philosophers, what a terrible bunch — they never seem to get anything write. Just look at what we’ve had to put up with!”

First, take Montaigne please, can ya please?
For that’s where this mess began to grow.
He was a receptacle for everything skeptical,
But I say, well what does he know?

After it started, it then got Descarted,
Our reason was pushed to the brink,
Well, “Rene,” I say, “you can have your way,
but I am and therefore I think!”

The state of nature you’ll find is great
If your name is Jean Jacques Rousseau,
But it hardly compares to the world of Voltaire’s
The best possible one that I know, Oh!

No stranger a mind are you likely to find
Than the psyche of Albert Camus.
Even sex can read slow when it’s done by Foucault,
Derrida, oh la la, I just have to say “no”!
No, none of these men seek the truth.

So forget those French hacks, they’re not what they seem,
Ah no,
But now I’ve come home to the place of my dreams,
Chicago!

I’m here to discover, no need for a lover,
At night now, my books hold me tight.
Though now I look pretty, I soon will turn gritty,
I’ll grow more aloof while I harbor my youth,
And finally, I’ll find the truth!

And who knows, maybe I’ll even find the time to do some private tutoring… [Professor faints]

This is a sort of secret, unofficial part of “Thy King Cometh”, but it’s not really in the oratorio.  The oratorio was originally written to be interspersed in various church services, on of which was a Maundy Thursday.  The church decided to combine it that year with 1st communion, so I needed something for the kids.  I decided to take the text and try to write an honest-to-god Disney ballad.

The fun of this was that all I wrote down was a lead sheet with chords.  The music was literally one line long.  I gave it to my swell friends Kimberly Gunderson (née Marolf) and Carlton Ford on the car ride up to the church.  Right before the service we picked keys and I told them to just let me modulate and they’d know where to start; and, most importantly, to ham it up as much as possible.  The improvised results can be heard above.