An Almost Irresistible G & S Parody

The very model of a modern German cardinal.

"That's Why the Lady is a Trad"

I have been laboring under, (or more accurately, "idling" under, since I am lazy and my time is my own,) awful insomnia.
A lot of it is, I think, due to a very minor medical condition, which I can feel.
When I am mentally or physically occupied, it is irrelevant, it certinaly isn't pain, doesn't even rise to the level of irritation.
So I don't notice it most of the day, but lying in bed trying to empty my mind for sleep, it becomes almost all I can think of, I am acutely aware of it.

Not important, but the strangest things come into my thoughts unbidden - a song parody, or two verses anyway, just popped into my head last night, fully realized.
(Of course, I'm not a Trad, albeit I could be described as a Fellow Trad-eller, perhaps?)

She gets too hungry for aftenoon Mass,
'Cause she thinks midnight's when one starts to fast.
She's on the prowl for a good Latin class,
          That's why the lady is a Trad.

She blisses out to a Josquin motet.
She  has no truck with a pulp missallette.
A Mass too solemn? She ain't found it yet,
           That's why.....

Maybe I'll write a bridge if sleep eludes me tonight.

"Gonna Take A Penitential Journey"

I lied, I do have one more comment to make, the phrase struck me, the expression that after "penitential journey" the divorced & remarried could be readmitted to the sacraments.

Which also remind me, made a little mistake the answer in a little quiz I was preparing my kids for yesterday, the prayer that  tells God that we are sorry for our sins was not "the confiteor" but the "act of contrition."

You know, O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins, because of Your just punishments, but most of all because they offend You, my God, who are all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life.

I'm just sayin'.

(Sorry, don't know what happened there, some letters just got bigger, like someone wanted to emphasize them or somethin'....)

Anyway, the mid-term report changed it to "path," but I couldn't resist the earlier iteration:

Gonna take a penitential journey,
Get those nullity decrees,
Gonna make a penitential journey,
Probe old wounds, and memories

Hopin' for a radical sanation,
So we get our marriage blessed
When we have that ol' convalidation,
We'll be feeling much less stressed.

Seven, that's how many months, it's seven,
Being done will feel like heaven!
Countin' every page of paperwork
We did not shirk

Never thought my heart could be so yearny,
Or the Church could feel like home,
Glad we took that penitential journey,
And aligned with Rome, Sweet Rome.

My Funeral

A road trip to a canonization memorial, too many miles of fretting on the way thither, and being disappointed on the way hither.

I know for a bald, flat  and unnuanced fact, from actual, sober, undemented conversations with the deceased, that prayer for rather than prayers to would have been appreciated.

Do modern Catholics think purgatory and limbo were similarly held notions? quaint but undogmatic, outmoded opinions of the long gone?
Pre- (horrors!) Vatican Two?

1. Yoo-hoo, yoo-hoo, yeah, you, I'm calling you,
When you're planning my funeral rites,
Don't assume I'm in heaven - I'll need your prayers for sure.

    REFRAIN: I'm beggin', preach about the Four Last Things,
    And please don't croon that "Eagle's Wings", 
    I'll need your prayers when I am gone,
    And frankly, I just cannot bear that song.

2. The number of syllables changes every verse,
And the pick-ups fill cantors with dread.
Sing this at my obsequies, and I'll haunt you when I'm dead.

      REFRAIN ...

3. Just to make certain, I'm leaving this command -
For my fun'ral, the propers will do.
No soupy songs, that just don't quite scan, paraphrases that don't even rhyme.

      REFRAIN...

Reformation Sunday and Song Parodies

This is a really thought-provoking essay about Protestantism and the foolishness of celebrating of failure.

Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday.

And somewhat apropos, a genius I have the pleasure to know, has written a wonderful little lyric called, "Grace and Merit," to this tune.

Perhaps she'll post it?

Come, Bishops, Tarry Not!

Stuck on hold for an unconscionably long time, (ah, the oxymoronic "customer service!") I came across a scrap of paper and polished a hymn-text I'd begun some time ago.
To those still fighting their rearguard "what if we just said 'wait'" action, I dedicate, or at least address this:

1.Come, bishops, tarry not
New missals aim our way!
O why these years of waiting here,
These ages of decay?

2.Come, for we PIPs still wait;
Daily ascends our sigh;
The Spirit and the Bride said, “Come”;
ICEL ignored their cry.

3.But now their work is done.
We cry, Fish or cut bait!
You have all dithered far too long,
No longer will we wait.

4.Father, obstruct this not,
Stand not in progress's way,
Leave off your whinging and your ploys,
We'll brook no more delay.

5.Translations new, at last
Faithful, and good and true.
If you defy the Church, well then...
Who's wrong, the Church or you?

6.Come and make all things new,
Build up Your Body, Lord.
Our faded foretaste of Your Heav'n,
To splendor be restored!

New Hymn

Apologies to Horatio Bonar...

1. Come, bishops, tarry not
New missals aim our way!
O why these years of waiting here,
These ages of decay?

2. Come, for we PIPs still wait;
Daily ascends our sigh;
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come”;
ICEL, O heed their cry.

3. (corrected) Is you work fin'lly done?
Fish! we cry, or cut bait!
You have all dithered far too long,
No longer will we wait.

4. Father, obstruct this not,
Stand not in progress's way,
Leave off your whinging and your ploys,
Your tactics to delay.

5. At last! translations new,
Faithful, and good and true.
If you defy the Church, well then...
Who's wrong, the Church or you?

(Corrected)ST BRIDE?

Needs some work, but for now...

"Don't Go Washing No Women's Feet"

The work of Tim Ferguson, (mantilla/t to Fr Z.)

An antiphon for Maundy Thursday (you must imagine Patty, Maxine and Laverne in cassock and surplice, producing their own distinctive brand of organum.)

Don’t go washing those women’s feet; the Latin is plain to me:
“selecti” should be “viri.” The rubrics are clear you see. No, no, no,
Don’t go washing those women’s feet at Thursday night’s liturgy,
Thus says the Pope of Rome.

Don’t go altering rubrics now, no matter who you may be,
Or where you got your degree in Scripture and Liturgy. No, no, no,
Don’t go altering rubrics now, this calls for humility:
You’re not the Pope of Rome.

I just got word that Ranjith has heard,
‘n put the Vicar in a jam,
Seems some priest here, washing feet last year,
Scrubbed a nylon-covered gam.
So, don’t go washing those women’s feet at Thursday night’s liturgy,
Or feel the wrath of Rome.

*This being Lent, I should make a full confession. 1) I don't actually wear a mantilla, and 2) at my parish we do indeed wash women's feet. Women NOT d'un certain age never seem to understand that since they will be sitting on a raised platform with an older gentleman kneeling in front of them and with a vast audience whose eyeline is at their, to put it delicately, seat-level, some thought should be given to their rainment -- pants, perhaps? or a skirt that comes at least to the bottom of the knee?

Just how worthy are you?

Archbishop Ranjith in the preface to Dominus Est, by Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda wrote, “The best way to express our sense of reverence to the Lord in Mass is to follow the example of Peter, who as the Gospel tells us, threw himself on his knees before the Lord and said, ‘Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinner’”. (Luke 5:8)

Oh, he ain't gonna like my latest song:

O Lord, I am so worthy,
That I never need to kneel...
I 'm sorry if that irks You,
It's just the way I feel.

We're a "resurrection people,"
It's our story that we tell.
Anyone who doesn't like it,
Can simply go to... receive Communion at the local sedevacantist chapel.

No kneeling!

A parody I don't think I ever posted -- just to be clear, this is NOT the attitude of our liturgist.
(The tune is from Guys and Dolls)

1. I dreamt last night, I was kneelin' in St Peter's,
And had, by chance, brought a liturgist along,
And as I knelt, thinking God was due some reverence,
She insisted that to kneel was all wrong,

The liturgist shrieked, stand up!
Stand up, you're rocking the boat!
The liturgist shrieked, stand up!
Stand up, you're rocking the boat!

2. I guessed perhaps, it was all to be "inclusive,"
The order was, genuflection was to cease!
We wouldn't want anyone to feel unwelcome,
(As you know, the devil's got no knees....)

And the liturgist shrieked, stand up!
Stand up, you're rocking the boat!
The liturgist shrieked, stand up!
Stand up, you're rocking the boat!

3.My previous practices would not be allowed at,
This nightmare liturgy in "bizarro Rome"
But as I lost any hope of adoration
I awoke, safe at my parish back at home

But our liturgist shrieked, stand up!
Stand up, you're rocking the boat!
The liturgist shrieked, stand up!
Stand up, you're rocking the boat!

Sing a Puppet Into Being

A modest proposal, I think Call To Action has discovered a solution to the priest shortage (the tune should be obvious.)

1. Take some flour, and some water,
Mix them well in to a paste,
Then recycle some old news print,
Tear it! let there be no waste.
Dip longs strips into the mixture,
Place them where they need to be
Bring a puppet into being,
Show your creativity.

2.How to use these gentle giants?
What their purpose? What their use?
Are they toys? a science project?
For the stage? Don't be obtuse!
We'll parade them to the altar,
Where they'll stand in proud array!
What priest shortage? we'll just build one
Out of more papier mache!

3. With his cold unblinking visage,
He might fill young ones with dread,
For it is the stuff of nightmares,
That bizarre, gynormous head.
But they'll soon become accustomed,
To his wierd and awkward ways,
Give it time and he'll seem normal,
They'll forget the olden days.

4. I begin to see the promise,
Of this way of building priests.
Mothers never need to give birth,
In the manner of dumb beasts,
Bear a child, just to offer
To the Church a pious son.
They can hire Julie Taymor,
And she'll go and build them one!

5. Much less messy, this will spare Moms
Childhood's ev'ry tear and pain,
Adolescents faults and foibles,
Yound adulthood's doubts and strains.
While we're at it, why stop at priests?
Lets make lectors, servers, too,
Deacons, singers... while we're at it
Why not puppets in each pew?

6. Brave New Church, that has such creatures,
In it! THIS is the new wave,
Soul-less dolls, or maybe robots?
Christ will have no need to save.
Sing a puppet into being,
We'll need people nevermore.
Just remind the final human:
Douse the light and close the door.

Sing a New Song!

For those who like BUNESSAN, (and really, isn't that everyone?) a new hymn tex... erm, I mean, a new HERn text, from a perhaps dormant, but I dearly hope not, new-to-me blog, http://femlove.blogspot.com/ the Herm*neutic of Suspicion.
I think it would be swell as the theme song for shipboard Extraordinations of the Poncho-clad, (as BMP would have it.)

http://femlove.blogspot.com/2008/01/hernal.html

We are not servants, we are creators
In this great cosmos that we call life;
Every woman should be the leader, ("Every" must be pronounced Ev-er-ee to scan properly)
Every man should bow to his wife.

We are not servants, we are empowered:
Don't want to be a stay-at-home mom.
So to our husbands, then to the bishops,
Let us each cry out: non serviam.

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

A parody via Organ-ci Chemist, Lyn (http://musical-chemist.blogspot.com/search/label/Parodies) via Christus Vincit, via Joe S. (don't know him, will have to look him up)

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways;
For most of us, when asked our mind, admit we still most pleasure find
In hymns of ancient days, in hymns of ancient days.

The simple lyrics, for a start, of many a modern song
Are far too trite to touch the heart; enshrine no poetry, no art;
And go on much too long, and go on much too long.

O, for a rest from jollity and syncopated praise!
What happened to tranquillity? The silence of eternity
Is hard to hear these days, is hard to hear these days.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness till all our strummings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress of always having to be blessed;
Give us a bit of peace, give us a bit of peace.

Breathe through the beats of praise-guitar Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let drum be dumb, bring back the lyre, enough of earthquake, wind and fire,
Let's hear it for some calm, let's hear it for some calm.

We Sing of Ourselves

When I post these, should I beg the indulgence of those who like the originals?
When I read this I was reminded of having recently read that Fr Roc O'Conner is considering the charge that we may sing about ourselves a tad too much...

1.Let's lay down a nice rhythm
A samba would be swell.
For praying or for dancing?
It's kinda hard to tell.
A hook that's really catchy,
And bouncy would be nice
Some cheery syncopation 'Cause it's a celebration
And not a sacrifice

Refrain: We sing of ourselves
We sing about us
To give You Your due,
Sing too much of You
Would seem too big a fuss
So humble and meek,
We doubt that You'd seek
To make Your worth and glory the center of the story,
So we'll sing of ourselves

2. Well, yeah, the text could center
On Him on Whom we feed.
But it just seems more nat'ral
To focus on our need.
And our preoccupations,
And what we'd like to do.
Then if we have some time left, some energy to rhyme left,
We might just mention You.
Refrain

3. We've heard about Your passion
We've heard it all before.
But music that befits that
Could really be a bore.
Reflecting on that bummer's
Not how we want to feel
'Cause dying's sorta dreary, Let's just sing something cheery
And get on with the meal.
Refrain

4.It's too much of a bother
Rememb'ring what we do
Is worthy of solemn'ty
Or mostly about You
We're here for affirmation,
Okay-ness, sweet and pat
We'll get more satisfaction from de - scribing our own action,
Let's concentrate on that.
Refrain

All Are Okay

The tune should be obvious.

1. Let us build a church, that's fuzzy, warm,
And cozy as a cocoon,
Decor and lighting, seating too....
Just like your living room!
Where the Soothing Song of Gather
Will supplant the Word of God
And complying with the Roman Missal,
Roman Missal, Roman Missal
Would be seen as quaint or odd.

2. Let us have a place, where we can sit,
In peace and just relax,
Where sermons never challenge us,
Or get down to brass tacks.
Where all behavior's welcome!
There's no call to change your life,
Because telling folks we need conversion,
Need conversion, need conversion,
Hurts our feelings, and leads to strife.

3. Let us have sweet talk, where "sayings hard"
Won't rankle or intrude.
Where sin is never spoken of,
Mere mention would be rude!
Where the only valued Virtue
Is the tolerance of Vice
If we're good or bad, it doesn't matter,
Doesn't matter, doesn't matter,
God won't care, long as we're "nice."

4.Let's remind ourselves, we're already saints,
So we never need to change.
Self control's just scrupulosity.
Continence? retro and strange.
Should you dare to preach repentance,
Or censoriously suggest
We amend our lives -- now THAT'S the only,
That's the only, that's the only
Urge that ever should be suppressed.

(amended 12:35 am, 8/18/07)

Song Parody from Christus Vincit blog

Faith of Our Father, one of my sentimental favourites, as well as some segments of the Catholic population comes in for some gentle ribbing at the snarkily musical blog Christus Vincit. http://christusvincit.blogspot.com/

(I've never sung, played, or even heard SAWSTON , outside of brit-coms, assuming it's the tune I'm thinking of.)

Faith of the grannies, priest-wannabes,
Faux ordinations on the high seas,
In the procession, three gifts are seen:
Bread and wine, and, thank God!... Dramamine.
Their day's long gone, they grasp at straws
Strive to make sense of menopause

Other targets:

Faith of the Dinosaurs, double-knit clad,
Dreaming of whate'er "edge" they once had...

and

Faith of the NPM, (not really "faith")
Quoting for gospel what V. Funk saith...

the author and my personal fave, dear old Origen:

Faith of Castrati, don't leave them out!
Some holy men live "with," some "without."
Becker says Origen should be giv'n heed,
When we ask "saints" to intercede.
(Who knew that Becker had the juice,
To decide what's bound and what's loose?)

Check it out!
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7002745&postID=5947719983100154949&isPopup=true

We smell condescension?

I just read an interview with a man who is arguably "the most widely sung liturgical composer today." (What is arguable is whether most of his oeuvre is "liturgical" music.

This quote is parody in and of itself:

I was struck during that service by ... how poorly written the psalm setting was. It was awful. I thought to myself—I could write this badly!

Ladies and gentlemen, make up your own punchline.

So in honour of this remarkably ingenuous bit of truth-telling, another song parody: unsure of the source... but I know how the author feels. (I used to cut and paste and save without noting the URL, and now would be hard pressed to verify much of what I thought was valuable or interesting. It's not from the Moratorium site. Ah well...)
To the tune, (not noted, but one needs no confirmation,) of "Gather Us In."

1.Here in this place, music is droning
Here, prayerful silence vanished away.
Hear in this space, the very walls groaning,
Echoing back that insipid cliche.

Plodding along, its tune uninspired
Its rhythms monot'nous, dogmas obtuse,
It's harm'nies simplistic, (its singular virtue?
No chance for that cantor to really cut loose.)

2.We are the young, we smell condescension,
We are the old, our needs are ignored,
Peering, we note, with sad comprehension
Ev'ry PIP seems either angered or bored.

Please, not that song! we've heard it too often.
Please, not that song! It's nothing but drek.
St Peter's barque, on swells of Art once borne,
Om'nously, now's headed straight for a wreck.

3.Lyrics profound once prevailed at the altar
Poets and mystics, each did his part,
Words of such grace, from Office or Psalter
Pinnacle of the hymnographer's art.

Once there was verse by Bede, odes of Ambrose,
Phrases from Faber, Aquinas and Neale,
Know'ng as "orandi," so followed, "credendi,"
What matter's what we believe, not what we "feel."

4.Enrobing these prayers? their musical mantle?
First there was chant, transcendant and true;
Then came the Byrds, Palestrinas, and Bruckners,
Tallises, Mozarts... a Haydn or two.

And good, homely tunes, true voice of the people;
Sturdy, much loved, authentically "folk."
Now we're reduced to pedestrian pablum,
Mass-produced pop tunes, an over-hyped joke.

5.How can this stuff, drawn from the dread "Gather,"
Worthily bear heart-felt praise to the Lord?
How can this prattle, this yammering blather,
Suitably clothe prayer to Him, most adored?

Wait just a mo'! Is that their intention?
Ignore the One Godhead, in Persons Three?
Honoring 'stead, a quite different "person,"
The FIRST person, plural? Yes, us, ourselves, we!

6.Down with this dogg'rel shaped by committee!
Trite ditties penned by purveyors of shlock!
Ye hucksters a-hawking soul-sapping songbooks:
The Sacred Restored will no doubt be a shock.

For breaks a new dawn! let new songs be sung now,
New but organic, "in tune" with the past!
Soon, true reform, so thirsted, so longed for!
Our "desert" of forty years ending at last.

Urinetown

Yes, it's a wretched title, but not a bad show.
Tasteless but not obscene, some very pointed satire and some witty, witty parodies of other musical styles. (That, actually, is its greatest flaw -- I didn't think the second act would ever be over with one mock-uplifting anthem after another, it felt as if there were multiple finales; enough already!)
Excellent production though, direction, choral sound, two or three superb performances... terrific evening on the whole, if it weren't sold out, I would post the info, I'd be proud to advertise it.

I'm glad to have Himself back. too.

It's a little gift from God that as soon as a show opens he has complete amnesia concerning how utterly bat-guano-insane the process makes him.
A gift to HIM.
Me, I get to live with an actor practically in a fugue state from self-esteem issues, and paranoia about what everyone else involved must be thinking about him and saying about him.

But it's not really that big a deal.

My only real problem is that the title fits perfectly the opening hook of a P & W song I despise, and every time it comes up again at church, that word will be running through my head. (In fact, a complete parody wrote itself, uncoaxed, in my head.)

And no, I can't just "ban" the song... that's not how being a pastoral musician works -- sorry, Mary Jane, I just had to use the term ;o)

Cheeze in Church

I think the tune will be self-evident


Must there be cheeze in church?
And must it be sung by me?
Cheap, sentiments of which
The focus is I, not He?

Just praise our Creator!
Why is that so hard?
Wallowing in how we feel
Is silly self-regard.

Let cheeze be banned in church,
Let this be the moment, now,
With every breath we take,
Let this be our solemn vow,
To take our song, and address our song
To Him, eternally!
Ban not just cheez in church,
But ego-centricity!

One of my very favourite tunes

Another parody I have long loved, but of which I have only just learned the author.

IMMORAL, IMPOSSIBLE, GOD ONLY KNOWS
(Tune: St. Denio)
1. Immoral, impossible, God only knows
how tenors and basses, sopranos, altos
at service on Sunday are rarely the same
as those who on Thursday to choir practice came.

2. Unready, unable to sight-read the notes,
nor counting, nor blending, they tighten their throats.
the descant so piercing is soaring above,
the melody only a mother could love.

3. They have a director, but no-one knows why,
no-one in the choir deigns to turn him an eye.
It's clear by his waving, he wants them to look,
but each of them stands with his nose in the book.

4. Despite the offences, the music rings out.
The folks in the pews are enraptured, no doubt.
Their faces are blissful, their thoughts are so deep,
but it is no wonder, for they are asleep.

Notes:
Original, verse 1, by Austin Lovelace.
Verses 2-4 added by Ron Hodges (choir of St. Mark’s, Palo Alto, California, USA) for the church’s 50th anniversary in November 1998.