Today I would like to take an opportunity to look back on a song that I sang in choir when I was a wee lad. I'm not getting all music nerd on y'all, I just found the lyrics kind of inappropriate (therefore funny) to be singing in a school setting.
The name of the song is called 'Neighbor's Chorus', it is from Jacques Offenbach’s comic opera, Lo jolie Parfumeuse. It was written in the golden age of 1954 when the world was fucking awesome and everything was mad easy...but that's beside the point. I sang this song when I was in 8th grade, which would put me somewhere around the studly age of 14ish and a half maybe. Granted the song was a made for comedic purposes, it was tough to discover the humor of domestic abuse at that age. I mean sure, everyone knew bitches got beat back in the day...but to sing about it 40some years later...awkward.
Take a listen!
Here are the lyrics so you can follow...
Please excuse us, mister, we don’t want to bother, we only want to know
All of us are neighbors and we're very curious
Why do you look so low?
Give us all the lowdown,
Did you reach a show-down with your last lady love?
Did you feel a let-down because you lost your love?
Ohhhhh!
Did she keep you waiting, did she break your date?
Please elucidate, please elaborate
Did she treat you badly, was she very bad?
Did she make you mad? Are you very sad?
(repeat words, just different rhythm)
Was she a very rich man’s daughter
Who showed that she was not all you thought her?
When with your songs of love you sought her,
Were you dowsed with water poured down from above?
Did you beat her, try to choke her till you made her pout?
Did her father take a poker, did he throw you out?
Did you beat her and choke her and knock her all about? Ah!
(back to verse 1)
(repeat verse 2)
(craziness ending)
The thing is....the song itself is pretty cool. I loved singing it because it was really fast and sounded kick-ay-suh. Looking back now, it is pretty funny. I think that we were allowed to sing it because if you do not have the words right in front of you, you don't have any idea what he song is about...until the
DID YOU BEAT HER AND CHOKE HER AND KNOCK HER ALL ABOUT...AHHHHH! part.
Not that any parents paid attention to ANYTHING that ever happend at a chorus concert...
unless someone puked or passed out (goto 20 seconds)...
So the wife beating song went unnoticed by the parents and we were allowed to sing it....plus I'm sure half of the fathers in the audience were like, "Fuck yeah I beat her and choked her and knocked her all about!"
Because it was the 90's...and mad people got divorced.
But on the real real real real real real real...
This song is pretty funny now that I think about it.
The song that we sang after it called, 'Fuck the milkman, pay him in pennies' however, was not.
Lata Bonaz.
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