I suppose I’m the only person who has heard a song and
thought that the lyrics were too short.
That is, the song has only one verse or two, and instead of being more
creative, the band just repeats that one or two verses several times.
This really bugs me.
Sometime it bugs me enough that, out of sheer obsessiveness, I’m compelled to come up with my own extra verse.
In Peter Beagle’s divine The Last Unicorn,
on the title critter’s lonely quest, she comes across a spoiled princess. This royal she-brat, as part of an arranged
marriage, follows a weary (to her) ritual in which she goes into the forest to
summon a unicorn with her supposed regal virginity. Dreary though the princess is, her would-be
incantation is quite affecting.
I am a king’s daughter,
And if I cared to care,
The moon, that has no mistress,
Would flutter in my hair.
No one dares to cherish
What I choose to crave.
Never have I hungered,
That I did not have.
I am a king’s daughter,
And I grow old within
The prison of my person,
The shackles of my skin.
And I would run away
And beg from door to door,
Just to see your shadow
Once, and never more.
In 1979 I wrote music to these verses. To my undying sorrow, when Beagle was a guest
at SoonerCon, I was too chicken to sing my version for him.
Many years later, in 2019, I committed the ultimate fan
profanity by writing my own third verse:
I am a king’s daughter,
And if my life should end,
The stars will bleed to
shadows
And darkness will descend.
Although my reign was
glorious,
My wealth has turned to tin.
Empty gnaws the hunger
You have left within.
Now it’s time to call the lawyers at Apple Corps. Remember the 1970 Badfinger song “Without
You,” covered by Nilsson, Mariah Carey, and others? It, too, suffers from a too-skimpy
lyric. They are:
Well I can’t forget this
evening
Or your face as you were
leaving,
But I guess that’s just the
way the story goes.
You always smile, but in your
eyes
Your sorrow shows,
Yes, it shows.
No I can’t forget tomorrow
When I think of all my sorrow,
When I had you there but then
I let you go.
And now it’s only fair that I
should let you know
What you should know.
I can’t live
If living is without you
I can’t live
I can’t give anymore
(repeat ad nauseam)
Here is my heretical third verse:
Ev’ry night I dream about you
But I still wake up without
you –
I sit up in my bed and wonder
why –
Even though my friends all
said you’d say good-bye
I still cry ….
What songs have you improved? Merry Christmas!
