Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Strange Music, Stranger Lyrics

Adding to my previous post on Wright and Forrest's musical Kean: in addition to the good songs, the show had one of the weirdest songs I've ever heard in a good musical, a pub drinking song called "The Fog and the Grog." The song was a mixture of weird noises (something like "Ogg, ogg"), silly vocal effects, and just plain bizarre lyrics, telling the story of a married frog who goes out for a night on the town and falls into a keg of rum:

That rummy frog, back on the track,
For lady frogs he felt a lack.
Bumped into one and lost his head,
Before she could blink her eye, he'd said:
"There is no time to piddle,"
And he had her in a huddle
In the middle of a cuddle
In a long, wet, rum-breath'd, bleary-eyed, frog-type smack!

Betwixt the fog and the grog,
It'll be blowsy, frowsy night tonight,
Which well we know, how we know,
For we've had a many, many such a night, all right!

That pair of frogs, though playing house,
They couldn't see, but didn't grouse.
She smelled so good, she felt so soft,
Till all at once, the fog left off,
And it's no taradiddle,
There he was in the middle
Of a bit of fiddle-faddle
With his fat-faced, gravel-voiced, bulge-eyed, on-his tail spouse!


I can't imagine what the point of this song was, but since it involved both Alfred Drake and Christopher Hewett, it's entirely possible that it might have been entertaining anyway. But on a cast album, it's a true what-the-hell-was-that moment.

No comments: