{"id":938,"date":"2009-03-17T21:38:12","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T01:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/sj\/?p=938"},"modified":"2009-03-17T21:39:30","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T01:39:30","slug":"ear-worm-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2009\/03\/17\/ear-worm-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"Ear worm heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"

The compleat works of favorite source of ear-worms, Michael Flanders<\/strong> and Donald Swann<\/strong><\/a>, has finally returned to my possession after some time apart.\u00a0 Welcome home!<\/p>\n

Here’s a favorite from one of their albums. I transcribed a bit here, but you can find a book of their songs<\/a> for further reading.<\/p>\n

Have Some Madeira, M’dear<\/strong> (listen<\/a>)<\/p>\n

‘That decanter and this hat gave us the idea for this little Edwardian song…<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

She was young, she was pure, she was new, she was nice.
\nShe was fair, she was sweet seventeen.
\nHe was old, he was vile, and no stranger to vice,
\nhe was base, he was bad, he was mean.<\/em><\/p>\n

He had slyly inveigled her up to his flat,
\nto view his collection of stamps,
\nand he said as he hastened to put out the cat, the wine, his cigar, and the lamps:<\/em><\/p>\n

Have some madeira, m’dear,
\nyou really have nothing to fear.
\nI’m not trying to tempt you, that wouldn’t be right,
\nyou shouldn’t drink spirits at this time of night.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em>Have some madeira, m’dear —
\n<\/em>it’s a very much nicer than beer.
\nI don’t care for sherry, one cannot drink stout,<\/em>
\nand port is a wine I can well do without.
\nIt’s simply a case of chacon raison gout;
\n<\/em>Have some madeira, m’dear!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

<interlude><\/em><\/p>\n

Unaware of the wiles of the snake in the grass,
\nand the fate of the maiden who topes,
\nshe lowered her standards by raising her glass, her courage, her eyes, and his hopes.
\n<laughter>
\nShe sipped it, she drank it, she drained it she did,
\nhe slyly refilled it again
\nAnd he said as he secretly carved one more notch
\non the butt of his gold-handled cane:<\/em><\/p>\n

Have some madeira, m’dear;<\/em>
\n I’ve got a small cask of it here,
\nand once it’s been opened, you know it wont keep.
\nDo finish it up, it will help you to sleep.
\n<\/em>Have some madeira, m’dear,
\n<\/em>it’s areally an excellent year.
\nNow if it were gin, you’d be wrong to say yes
\nthe evil gin does would be hard to assess
\n(and besides it’s inclined to affect me prowess).
\n<\/em>Have some madeira, m’dear!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Then there flashed through her mind what her mother had said
\nwith her antepenultimate breath:
\n“Oh my child, if you look on the wine when ’tis red,
\nbe prepared for a fate worse<\/strong><\/em> than death!”
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

She let go her glass with a shrill little cry;
\ncrash-tinkle it fell to the floor.
\nWhen he asked what in heaven? she made no reply, up her mind, and a dash for the door!<\/em><\/p>\n

“<\/em>Have some madeira, m’dear!”
\n<\/em>rang out down the hall, loud and clear;
\na tremulous cry that was filled with despair
\nas she paused to take breath in the cool midnight air.
\n“<\/em>Have some madeira, m’dear<\/em>“,
\nthe words seemed to ring<\/strong> in her ear…<\/em><\/p>\n

Until the next morning she woke up in bed,
\nwith a smile on her lips and an ache in her head,
\nand a beard in her ear- oh, that tickled and said,
\nHave some madeira m’dear – Ahaha! ‘
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The compleat works of favorite source of ear-worms, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, has finally returned to my possession after some time apart.\u00a0 Welcome home! Here’s a favorite from one of their albums. I transcribed a bit here, but you can find a book of their songs for further reading. Have Some Madeira, M’dear (listen) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVvB-f8","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}