When we were small, our mother used to make us play
The Diabelli Variations Opus 33
We gave our all, and on our first recital
We played the vital Chopin
And the Jardin Sous La Pluie by Debussy
But now we're grown up. We must own up:
We love the gutter music, not the music of the spheres
Though other folk adore symphonic dances
We'd rather fill our ears with Connie Francis
Give us some Cheap Decadent Drivel
The kind that sloshes all around all day
In your supermarket and in your office elevator
All over the USA
We love to hear a tawdry rock and roller
A little dinner music in the afternoon
We love a raspy, scratchy, old Victrola
And we'd just adore a little bit more of that moon and June and spoon
Give us some swill, vulgar but simple
A mediocre tune is such a tease
Johann Strauss preferred the Fiedermaus
But we ain't as easy to please
We take after Mother
We like to buy classical records (Don't you?)
Just so we can smash them on the wall
It's such a thrilling feeling to hurl Caruso at the ceiling
And to desecrate Parsifal
Sometimes we have a private conflagration
Just a teensy little personal caprice
We start a fire with Wagner's immolation
And all the while we smile and sing along with Della Reese
We love the tone, smokey, but dulcet
That issues from the throat of Leslie Gore
So you can keep your Jewel Song, give us a cool song
Who could ask for anything more?
Give us some Cheap Decadent Drivel
To keep us feeling rotten and debased
Take your Aaron Copland and Willy Nilly Billy Schuman
Them people don't got no taste
And now we turn to Mister Leonard Bernstein
He's a contrapuntal homophonic tease
Listen Lenny! Keep them fugues uptown at Lincoln Center
Lock the doors. Prevent the spread of muscial disease
Give us some slop, tacky but tempting
Such joy that kind of music always brings
Now you can keep your fiddlers and your classical nuts
Cuz' we like a singer with guts
Like Sonny Bono
Somebody groovy who swings
Like Yoko Ono
And you can send Joan Sutherland back to her motherland
Send Luciano back to Milano
They just do not belong
Give us some Cheap Decadent Drivel
To make our psyche swivel
Give us a second rate song
So long
