Limericks

UPDATED MARCH 17, 2012

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Thanks to all who have helped me through the years for ensuring that the number of names on my list of credits be kept to a bare minimum.

Brace yourselves for my soon-to-be-released CDs, "O.V. Michaelsen: The Platinum Years" and "Aluminum Hat" in glorious lo-fi.

PARODIES

A little tribute to Bob Dylan, Steve Martin, and Lily Tomlin (the Incredible Shrinking Woman):

small

(A parody of Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," recorded under my alias "Bjorn Toulouse." I "borrowed" this lowercase title from a 1996 poem by Carol Denney.)

They'll shrink you when they see you walking tall.

They'll shrink you when you're up against the wall.

They'll shrink you 'til you want to find a wall-crack,

Or maybe decide to hide beneath a towel rack.

And soon, they find you muttering in the hall,

"Everybody must get small."

They'll shrink you as you try to keep your hat on,

And do it 'til you fear that you'll be sat on.

Shrink you 'til you're fallin' through the cracks,

Prunelike, when you're shrunken to the max.

Invisible when you're amb-e-lin' through the mall.

Yes, everybody must get SMALL.

They'll shrink you if you're doin' right or wrong,

Knowing you were little all along.

They'll shrink you when you try to write a spoof,

Then show you that you're dumb, with all the proof.

No need for you to do a thing at all.

They tell you, "Everybody must get small."

They'll shrink you even though you're one foot eight,

At a table where you're unable to reach your plate.

They'll shrink you 'til you're buried in your clothes,

And have you look up at them from between their toes.

So shortened, you won't have too far to fall--

Yeah, everybody must get SMALL.

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A tribute to the great Johnny Cash:

I TALK ONLINE

(Performed by my altered ego, "The Man in Back")

I keep a close watch on that screen of mine.

I keep my eyes wide open all the tine.

Since I'm on Facebook, friends aren't hard to fine.

Because you're mine, I talk online.

I find it not so very easy to be cute,

Those endless times when you seem deaf and mute.

My friends don't know I'm in my birthday suit.

Because you're mine, I talk online.

You've got a way to get on someone's nerves.

You give me cause for regret no one deserves.

I'd rather chat with all the geeks and pervs.

Because you're mine, I talk online.

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This is the verse I've used of Geoff Mack's tune "I've Been Everywhere."

The names marked by asterisks are in the original hit version.

Fingerville, Footville, Cucumber, Cucamonga,

Cheesequake, Leaf Lake, Smackover, Opalocka;

White Fox, Dime Box, Fort Knox, Alameda,

Matawan, Oblong, Dry Prong, Loma Linda;

Waterloo, Havasu, Kalamazoo, Pasadena,*

Sioux City,* Yuba City, Cedar City, what a pity--

I’ve been everywhere...

The best-known rendition of that song, before Cash covered it, was the 1962 hit by Canadian-born country music legend Hank Snow [Clarence Eugene Snow](1914-1999), "The Singing Ranger."

Word has it that the original version of the song was composed of Australian place-names.

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I tried recording that song, using the replaced names, but turned blue from oxygen depletion.

Because of my failed attempt at singing the long-winded verses, I called my version "I've Run Out of Air," under the alias "Philip Morris." ("Tobacco? I've had my share, man...")

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One of my favorite parodies of a Hank Snow song was Homer and Jethro's take on "I'm Moving On":

The old man's face got as white as a sheet / When his false teeth dropped into his Cream of Wheat / He's a-movin' on..."

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"Grueling Banjos" is one of the instrumentals on my forthcoming CD, A Treasury of Terrible Tunes.

It will also include the obscure John Hartford song, "You Can't Run Away from Your Feet."

Stay tuned for info on the release.

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I say poh-TAY-toh, you call it tater,

I say the THEE-eh-ter, you say thee-AY-ter.

Toh-MAY-toe, toh-MAW-tuh,

My DAY-tuh, your DAW-tuh…

Let’s call the damned thing off.

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A FEW ORIGINALS

This talking “tune” has been through three incarnations. I wrote the original version of the “song” in the late 1970s. It contains ten examples of the oxymoron. The fifth line in verse four was inspired by the graffito, “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.” Simone Signoret used it as the title of her 1978 autobiography.

AN OXYMORON SONG

(LOVING YOU DROVE ME MAD)

I lost my mind to win your heart,

Knowing well we were off to a finishing start.

I can’t get into getting out

’cause I’m quite certain about my doubt.

I’m happy feeling sad—

Loving you drove me mad.

I turned you on, then you turned on me,

When it came my turn, you turned away.

I never got used to getting used

To do the things that you refused to.

It’s the blues, if I keep or lose you—

Loving you drove me mad.

Well, it takes a lot of the little I’ve got,

I’m more confused the more I give it thought.

I lost it all on one “sure bet,”

Now I can’t recall what I oughtta forget.

Let’s just forget we’ve never met,

Loving you drove me mad.

Now, bad is good and uh, cold is hot,

It’s a contradiction, then a-gain it’s not.

I’ve given up all o’my sanity

In search of some sweet memory,

But the past is never what it used to be.

Loving you drove me mad.

You’re the best I’ve never had;

Loving you drove me mad.

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Most of my songs are about relationships, but seldom about myself, even though they're occasionally in the first person. I sing to or FOR people, rather than AT them. The limericks are ANOTHER story.

This one has been misunderstood. The only finger-pointing I did in it was at the mirror. 

When I wrote it in the 1970s, Iwasn’t aware of a 1974 recording by Jerry Lee Lewis called “The Alcohol of Fame”from 1974. I got my idea by misremembering a very old TV series as ‘The AlcoaHall of Fame,” mixing NBC’s “Alcoa Theatre” with the “Hallmark Hall of Fame.”

THE ALCO-HALL OF FAME (not the "'Alcohol' of Fame")

In the alco-hall of fame,

Everybody knows your name.

In each and every bar,

They all know who you are.

Congratulations, pal, we're glad you came,

And welcome to the alco-hall of fame.

And here's to the years

You spent your hard earned pay

On the whiskey, wine, and beer

That brought you here today.

For all you've lost, there'sone thing you can claim—

You've won your place in the alco-hall of fame.

   You're the life of every party,

   The happy hour clown,

   And everybody's buddy

   When the bottle don't let you down.

   The more you change, the more you stay the same;

   You own the crown in the alco-hall of fame.

But soon, before you're sober

And it's close to closin'time,

You'll sit and drink it over—

All the years you've left behind.

When you lose it all, you'll have yourself to blame,

Just one last call, in the alco-hall of fame.

In the alco-hall of fame,

Everybody knows your name.

You drink, therefore you are,

A self-made stupor star.

It's no surprise, the legend you became—

You've earned your place in the alco-hall of fame.

Stand up and take a bow,

Everybody knows you now—

Yeah, welcome to the alco-hall of fame.

*

This number got me into some hot water in Austin,Texas—a town rich in music. When I left that city in early 2003, after serving six months in a cultural prison, only a few good clubs remained—specializing in jazz and blues. Most of the artists who perform in the blues clubs are Caucasian. When I played the song there, those who weren’t chuckling were angered and possibly armed.

“Steamroller Blues,” by James Taylor, struck me as being about sheltered, amateur white wannabe-blues-players who hadn’t quite paid their dues. I took the satire a step or two further. A few people mistake my spoof on stereotyping for slamming melanin-deficient artists.

We're living in an angrier, more literal, and concrete era than in recent decades.

(Have Garrison Keillor, Martin Mull, or Kinky Friedman gotten the same reaction?).

I remember Randy Newman mentioning the angry letters he received after recording his hit “Short People” (obvious to SOME that it was a lampoon on prejudice).

TOO WHITE TO PLAY THE BLUES 

(Performed under the name “Bland Lemon")

Well, I’ve tried many hats, and I’ve worn many shoes,

Lost my shirt, still I ain’t paid my dues,

’cause there’s only one thing / that I’ll never live down--

I’m just too darn white to play the blues.

Though I picked like a demon, the crowd only stared.

You get no respect when you’re rhythm impaired.

Had plenty of hard times, but / Not one I could use,

’cause I’m just too white to play the blues.

   While everyone’s jumpin’ / to the beat ofthe band,

   I move to their music / like I’m ankle-deep in sand,

   And though I was raised / on old time rock‘n’ roll,

   I can get down and out, but it ain’t the blues without the soul.

Don’t give me that quarter beat—I'm not hard to confuse,

’cause I’m too darn white to play the blues.

Guess I’ll suffer in silence / from my hat to my shoes,

I’m too dog gone white, hopelessly white, Lord, I’m just too white to play the blues.

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THE BLUES BLUES

I noticed by noon

That I hadn't heard my neighbor’s shoes,

Then into the evenin’,

There still was no sound of my neighbor’s shoes.

Well, he didn't wake up that mornin’;

He had the dead as a doornail blues.

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IT'S MY GIRL

Keep your peepers in the sockets

And your fingers in your pockets—

It's MY girl.

I can tell that your mind is

On the seat where your behind is.

Don’t TRY, Earl.

  When you're giving her the look,

  I can read you like a book.

  You fish without a hook,

  And you'll only be forsook.

  No LIE, Earl.

Keep the muzzle on your face,

Or I'll soon be on your case.

I’m her GUY, Earl.

You're a weasel and a fink

When you offer her a drink.

Good-BYE, Earl.

  The moves that you've been makin'--

  What the hell have you been takin'

  To think that you'll awaken

  To the smell of egg and bacon

  With MY girl?

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We write what we know, and this is one that I paid for from experience.

It’s a rock song in a minor key.

The word  "you" in this was Yours Truly and others on my former path. Years of wandering led me only to songs about it.

VAGABOND BLUES

Too hungry to eat, too tired to sleep,

Too weary to worry, and you're too sad to weep—

You’ve learned that the highway

Can be a hard way to go.

You've ignored every sign, and you’re learning the fact

That an easy way out is the hardest way back.

Bound by your freedom

To a long, lonely road.

With nothing to hide, and nothing to show

But a long empty past, and along way to go,

You lose all you gain

As you search for that place to belong.

A master of ways to barely survive,

Forever on the move without a place to arrive.

I wonder where you’ll be when you’re no longer longing to roam.

Not sure where you’ve been, orwhere it will end,

And you’re bound to be found on that highway again.  

These vagabond blues, they’ll get you back on the run.

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A dozen reviews of Ove's music and stagemanship by LYDIA CHALET and THALIA CLYDE of THE DAILY CAL:

"He's been known to outnumber an entire audience."

"He's living proof that the stage is where a performer can attend his own funeral."

"He HAS no following--just hostages and refugees."

"A dead ringer for George Clooney, minus the body and face."

"He took a request and yet kept right on playing."

"His 'music?' I haven't heard it, and I didn't like it."

"He was fired from his most recent job as a face model for doorknockers."

"He's played for nearly forty years, on and off--mainly 'off.'"

"He's not a musician, but plays one onstage."

"Contents? Nonsense."

"But seriously, over a lifetime, he has earned a dozen fans and a five-figure income (thanks to the decimal point)."

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PITFALLS TO AVOID, WHEN POSSIBLE:

STOCK RHYMES IN SONGS

the way you walk, the way you talk

glance, chance, dance, romance

love, dove, thinkin' of, the moon / the stars / the Lord above

bought, brought, caught (for)got, hot, not, fought, a lot

strong (be)long, wrong, song

low, dough, slow, flow, owe, grow, no, go

living without you, thinking about you

(I'm) down on my knees, (I'm) begging you, "Please!"

(left) on the shelf, all by myself

all alone, telephone

hurtin', for certain

only, lonely

lazy, crazy

drinkin', thinkin'

dreaming, scheming

make a change, rearrange

June, tune, moon, soon

maybe, baby

reelin', feelin'

hand in hand, along the sand

your charms, in my arms

tease me, squeeze me, please me, frees me

stranger, danger

warning, morning

illusion, confusion

years, tears

the rain, the train, the pain, again

wife, strife, knife, life

worry, hurry

jail, bail

money, honey

highways, byways

double, trouble

beg, steal and borrow, sorrow, tomorrow

try, sigh, cry, die, good-bye