Parody of “The Undertaker's Horse”, words by
Rudyard Kipling
, music by
Leslie Fish
For
more information
and other parodies, see
www.songworm.com
Reprinted from
Songworm 1
This parody was sung by
Leslie Fish
on
Tapeworm 2
Parody lyrics ©1988-01-15 by Bob Kanefsky. All rights reserved. The copyright of the original lyrics and music remain with the holder(s) of the original copyright.
| The | Am house | wives | E learn | to | Am use | it, |
| And the | Am high | school | E kids | ab | Am use | it. |
| And it’s | C found | inside the smallest children’s | G toys | , |
| As if | C not | hing could be | G cut | er |
| Than a | Am fuzz | y, soft com | E put | er! |
| It’s a | Am men | ace | E near | ly | Am eve | ry | G one | em | Am ploys | . |
Neither friendly nor malicious;
But a curiously suspicious thought
Intrudes upon my peace and fans my fears:
That computers have a plot
To supplant all human thought,
And to cheat us out of meaningful careers.
They can secretly make their place sure
By the carefully planned erasure
Of their users’ work through feigned mishap or flaw.
When I’m fool enough to use one
I am always sure to lose one
Or another of my files in its maw.
Answer, lightning-witted moron:
Where’s the text I tried to store on you
The paper I’ve been working on for years?
Such a rash and foolish risk,
To entrust it to your disk!
Bring it back to me, you lousy mess of gears!
With your cursor pale and blinking,
And your literal way of thinking,
And that disconcerting flicker of your screen,
Whether a costly squat and gray thing
Or a simple child’s plaything,
What wonder, when I see you, I turn green?
These thought-crimes go undetected,
Like the way my last bad check did.
Or perhaps a secret file on them lies
In some governmental basement,
Where a digital replacement
Does the dirty work of former human spies.
But perhaps the years approaching
Will see second thoughts encroaching
On the stranglehold you have on human trust.
Will a future time reject you
And our children disconnect you?
I’ll chuckle when you’re set outside to rust.
But your rise shows no abatement,
And my dwindling bank statement
Spells it out in lines of laser-printed text:
To the poor-house you will chase me,
For you’re destined to replace me.
Whose profession are you superseding next?
