Parody of The Nightmare Song from Iolanthe by G&S

[Thanatos]

Brilliant! But are you sure Lissard can sing counter-tenor? Incidentally, the original lyrics and MIDI of Model of a Modern Major-General can be found at http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/pirates/html/p13.html (though the MIDI's tempo is a little slow).

And now, yet more (well, the original's title, The Nightmare Song, was just asking for it - again, original lyrics and MIDI at http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/iolanthe/html/lying_awake.html

When you quest past the lake with a dismal headache, and success is taboo’d by anxiety,

I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety:

For your brain is on fire – the hazards conspire of usual prowess to plunder you,

Firstly Goth overflows and slime covers your toes, then a tile slips demurely from under you;

Then the Eye-Shield tickles – you feel like mixed pickles – it’s so cheap the backing is hairy!

And you’re hot and you’re cross – in the Sewers you’d toss this inane prop that’s unnecessary.

Your clue objects all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick ‘em all up in a tangle;

Next the Helmet resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!

Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, when a nap the production crew’s taking.

But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very much better be waking;

For you dream you are crossing the cold lake and tossing about in the Dunswater ferry,

Which is something between a large bathing machine and an old R.U.C. van in Derry,

And the strange boatman’s hood doesn’t smell very good – he could pass himself off as Sylvester –

But you’ve got to the bank, your conveyor you thank, and you meet a quite unfunny jester.

Your course then divergent, you meet a young merchant who looks rather thin as from hunger;

He’s so poorly disguised that you don’t feel surprised when he tells you his name’s Scaramonger.

Well, you bargain like mad with this mercantile cad and he offers poor potions and pebbles,

And imperfectly strung tapes of Knightmare’s theme, sung by pre-pubescent altos and trebles;

But this you can’t stand, so you throw up your hand, and you’re stuck with a nautical loud-talker,

In his hat and his beard (of which both look quite weird) crossing o’er the Great Mire on the Cloudwalker:

To him the Mire’s new and so too is his crew – which the captain at last has invested in –

And he’s telling the tars all the particulars of an astrolabe he’s interested in –

It’s inscribed with devices, to get at low prices his storm-rods and wind-transportations

(Which voyages require) at speeds even higher than those of good teleportations –

You show the good captain the fix which he’s trapped in (for guess what? The astrolabe’s vanished),

And he’s rather annoyed – you can see he has toyed with the idea of having you banished –

But reach an accord: you’re not thrown overboard and you help him to find it (oh, hark at it!),

But Tim Child gets there first and his plan is the worst, for he trademarks the damn’d thing to market it –

The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by Televirtual,

And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake – the dream’s really hurt you all –

But the quest starts again, and you enter a glen,

And are very soon seen, and you meet Gwendoline,

And she’s pointing huge pins at your soles and your shins,

And your flesh is a-creep, for the danger is deep,

But she lets to go through, and the next room is blue,

And you’ve moved from the glades, to the Passage of Blades,

And you’d rather be back, though the view is all black, in the forest of oak trees and clover;

But a blade comes at you, cuts you cleanly in two,

And the quest has been long – ditto ditto my song – and thank goodness they’re both of them over!