I have decided to devote my life to birdsong. No, not that kind of birdsong, all those trills and squawks and cooing noises that birds make. I mean songs about birds. I have not quite worked everything out in my head, but the general idea is to take familiar songs, not originally about birds, and to amend the lyrics to make them more bird-focussed. I feel this would provide an invaluable musical service for both humans and birds. As an example, here is the first fruit of my project, a rewrite of David Bowie’s 1979 hit Boys Keep Swinging. I hope you will agree that this revised version is superior in every way, particularly from an ornithological point of view.
Heaven loves ya
The clouds part for ya
Nothing stands in your way
When you’re a grebe
Plumage regales ya
Life is a pop of the cherry
When you’re a grebe
When you’re a grebe
You can soar through the air
When you’re a grebe
Other grebes check you out
You get a fish
These are your favourite things
When you’re a grebe
Grebes
Grebes
Grebes keep swinging
Grebes always work it out
Uncage the colours
Unfurl the flag
Luck just kissed you hello
When you’re a grebe
They’ll never clone ya
You’re always first on the line
When you’re a grebe
When you’re a grebe
You can dabble about on a pond
When you’re a grebe
Learn to dive and everything
You’ll get your share
When you’re a grebe
Grebes
Grebes
Grebes keep swinging
Grebes always work it out
Whenever I get to feel this way,
try to find new words to say,
I think about the bad old jays
we used to know.
Nights of winter turn me cold —
fears of dying, getting old.
We ran the race and the race was won
by running owly.
Could be soon we’ll cease to sound,
slowly upstairs, faster down.
Then to revisit stonechat grounds,
we used to know.
Remembering mornings, starlings spent,
made no sense to leave the nest.
The bad old jays they came and went
giving way to fruitful geese.
Saving up the birds in hand
while in the bush the others land.
Take what we can before the ptarmigan
says it’s time to go.
Each to his own way I’ll go mine.
Best of luck with what you find.
But for your own sake remember terns
we used to know.
– Jethro Gull.
Let me hear you say yeah!
Let me hear you say yeah!
No no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there’s no linnet!
No no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there’s no linnet!
No no linnet, we’ll reach for the sky!
No valley to deep, no mountain too high.
No no linnets, won’t give up the fight!
We do what we want and we do it with pride.
– 2 Unlinneted.
I’ve always thought that “And Your Bird Can Sing” would have been a much better song if John Lennon had only gone to the extra effort of specifying what sort of bird it was.
Well, this is a song ‘about’ birds. “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” by Tim Lehrer. http://youtu.be/yhuMLpdnOjY