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Saturday, November 18, 2017

His Dinosaurs

(Unaware that someone had gone with something similar, though different enough that I don't feel guilty now, I wrote this filk song to the tune of a radio hit by the Irish Rovers, and written by the great Shel Silverstein. It's been going through my mind, so I'm posting it here, where it will be safe from the view of all humanity. I tinkered with the words in small ways just now, because there's this thing called "scansion.")

Six thousand years back, as King James portrays,
The Lord of all created earth, in just seven days.
Made stars and trees and moons and men and animals galore,
And the biggest of them all was the dinosaur.

[chorus]
  There was mean Allosaurus, and small Dilong,
  The eagle-eyed Raptor and Pteranadon,
  The horny head Triceratops; a whole lot more:
  Almost 2k genera of dinosaur.

The Lord said to Noah, "I have to confess,
I'm going to wipe the world out, since it's turned out such a mess.
But if you'll make a boat before it rains for days two score,
You can save Man and Animal and Dinosaur."

[chorus]

The Lord told Noah to build a barge
To hold a lot of animals, some small and some large,
Said He, bring lots of kibble and build in some big doors
Tall enough and wide enough for dinosaurs...

[chorus]

So Noah cornered all the world's gopherwood
And studied God's plans and started building real good:
A boat three hundred cubits long of sturdy four-by-fours
Praying he could fit all those dinosaurs.

[chorus]

Then Noah looked and looked, and found the oddest thing
The dinosaurs were marching off in time with "Rite of Spring"
The rain commenced to falling with a mighty roar
And he just couldn't wait for no dinosaur.

[last chorus]
  So now there's mammals aplenty, and reptiles too
  Amphibians and fish and even me and you
  But if you don't include the birds that over us do soar
  You're never ever gonna see a dinosaur.


ttto: The Unicorn (Shel Silverstein)
new lyrics (c) 2007 by me