Shania Twain's "VERSE!": An Anthem for Limericists

PARODY LYRICS  

ORIGINAL SONG: "Up!"  is the lead song in the eponymous album recorded by Shania Twain in 2002. The song, in a light country/western format, is notable for its use of a limerick-like rhyme, AABBA, in its five-line verses. As the scansion of "Up!" doesn't quite 

fit with the anapestic (x-x-X) triple-rhythm of limericks, some changes were required to modify the traditional limerick stories recounted in this parody.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January 2018. 
SONGLINK:  The verses of this song demonstrate the possibility of using novel song melodies to sing the stories of classic limericks. 

"VERSE!"

(to the tune of "Up!" by Shania Twain)

| I'm hooked on verse| x4

Seems things have gone from bad to worse:
Can't be effusive, must be terse, 
I found an online limerick site,
That would accept my poems alright,
And now I'm hooked on 5-line verse. 

Spend all my time in writing 'lim's.
Don't socialize with hers or hims. 
My brainscan shows a funny bulge  
Where, I store and I indulge
All my versifying whims.

Limn, limn, limn -  
A verb for 'suffuse with light'.
Lim, lim- 
Great poem if your scansion's right 
Lim, lim'rick - 
A lulu, it's out of sight. 

Out on Nantucket lived a man;
Kept all his cash hid close at hand, 
Until the day when Nan his daughter
She eloped, she shouldn't oughter,
Then she ran off with his can. 

A flee and fly inside a flue
They didn't know just what to do.
The flea opined that they should fly
The fly declined, I don't know why;
They couldn't find the flaw, can you? 

A lady traveler named Miss Bright
On trips made time faster than light.
One day with relatives (poor lass)
Converted energy to mass,
Then she returned the previous night. 

Limn, limn, limn -  
A verb for 'suffuse with light'.
Lim, lim -   
Great poem if your scansion's right 
Lim, lim'rick  - 
A lulu, it's out of sight.

AABBA 
AABBA
AABBA
... yeah  

On limerick verse here is my slant:
No question if you should or shan't. 
If you just take aim and edit
And don't rant; that's to your credit
Once you shoot, you can't recant.

So, I'm addicted: writing lims.
Don't socialize with hers or hims.
My brainscan shows a funny bulge  
Where I srtore ands I indulge
All my versifying whims.

I'm hooked on verse;
On 5-line verse;
| I'm hooked on verse| x2

AABBA 
AABBA
AABBA

Yeah ! 



UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT (and guitar, too)
(Click on any chord-chart slide to move to 'song-presentation mode'; then navigate through thumbnails at bottom of page.)

HOTLINKS TO OTHER CANADIAN-THEMED SONG-POSTINGS

An Alien Heading South

Big Rob Rehab Clinic

Canadian Reunion

Canoeing Lesson

I've Got Anagrams, Eh?

Flight of the Loonie

FOP-Shop Wine

Mergerwocky

Off-Patent Drug #19

Prattle of New Orleans

Suburbs' Guy

The Maple Leaf Ad Infinitum 

This Land Has Anagrams

TTC Voices

Vancouver's Isle

..AND A FEW LIMERICK-BASED SONGS

Shania Twain's "Verse": An anthem for limericists. See below.

Canada Day 2015 (singable limericks)

Limericks About Chemainus, B.C.

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS

(Click on any verse-slide to expand and go to thumbnail mode)

WORDPLAY LINK: 

For wordplay (palindromes, anagrams, eggcorns, creative cartography, etc.) and silly poetry (polished limericks), see our sister blog "EDIFYING NONSENSE" here. 

Filastrocca: PISA'S LEAN TRATTORIA

Post #167

PARODY LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "Santa Lucia" was a traditional song in the Neapolitan language, describing the appeal of an evening boat trip on the harbor in the Borgo (district of) Santa Lucia of Naples; it became a popular song after its translation into Italian by Teodoro Cottrau in 1849; it was the first Neapolitan song to undergo such a change during early enthusiasm for Italian reunification. It has been performed and recorded (links to Youtube) by many operatic singers e.g. Caruso, Lanza, Pavarotti and Bocelli, and also by Elvis Presley.  

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January, 2018. (The skeptical reader may surmise that the substituted lyrics are, in fact, about food intolerance), but the Italian setting and song make for a more enchanting experience.

In the original Italian song, each pair of lines is repeated, making the verses nominally 8 lines long. For simplicity, the repetitions are not included here in the parody-lyrics.  

WORDPLAY LINK: An expanded version of these lyrics, slightly modified to suit the format, form part of a poetic submission on our sister blog "Edifying Nonsense" entitled Limericks About Food Intolerance, posted in February 2019.

SONGLINK: Check out an earlier post on this site entitled "Singable Limerick-Medley #19: Eating Italian" for other singable aspects of italian food. Also, the story of the original clean Nantucket limerick can be retold using the "Santa Lucia" melody, among others - see "Novel Melodies for Singing Limericks".

Filastrocca: Italian for "nursery rhyme', 'fable','doggerel', or 'rigmarole'.

FILASTROCCA: THE LEAN TRATTORIA OF PISA

(to the tune of "Santa Lucia": Note: each rhyming pair of lines is repeated in most recordings of this song)

CHORUS

Sul mare luccica, l’astro d’argento

Placida è l’onda, prospero il vento.

Venite all’agile, barchetta mia;

Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia!

Sneaking treats from his own gelateria,

Gino was suffering frank diarrhea,

“Flatus: such awful gas; gelati? I’d better pass."

Bought a bakery(a) , now lives lactose-free-a.

Reprise: Where is Gino? Let's look and see, ah!

Tasting dough in his pasticceria,

“Food-induced ills persist; physicians, they now insist 

I should call it quits, and .. exist gluten-free-a." 

Fat-free meals: Gino dreamed this fine idea

For his food enterprise number th(a)ree-a

(He had grown quite obese, once GI symptoms ceased) – 

Now he'd start up Pisa's 'Lean Trattoria'.

Repeat CHORUS.

UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT (and guitar, too!)

(Click on any chord-chart slide to move to 'song-presentation mode'; then navigate through thumbnails at bottom of page.)

At this point you might wish to return to the post 'Singable Lyrics: Novel Melodies for Limericks' HERE. 

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS