Parody of “Houseguests”, words and music by
Larry Warner
For
more information
and other parodies, see
www.songworm.com
Parody lyrics ©1992-10-18 by Bob Kanefsky. All rights reserved. The copyright of the original lyrics and music remain with the holder(s) of the original copyright.
See www.songworm.com/about/Tribble-Gumbo.html for list of ingredients to this song.
There are tiny little balls of fur that live inside my ship.
They reproduce asexually at quite a lively clip.
When one was bought and beamed aboard, all snuggled close and warm,
We didn’t know it soon would spawn a thriving tribble swarm.
We organized a tribble drive, and many of the crew
Tried phasers, force fields, tractor beams, and chicken wire and glue.
Our Lady of Communications won a ship-wide bet
By bagging the most tribbles in a handmade fishing net.
| Chorus: |
But the tribbles are alive and well. All hands, Condition Red! * They ate my chicken sandwich. Now it’s tribble on rye bread! * Just when you thought it’s safe to stand beneath a grain bin door, The latest generation goes where none have gone before. |
A gang of Klingons dropped their shields, and this is what we saw:
A chance to pack our tribbles off, and maybe break the law.
We beamed them to that Bird of Prey, which soon was homeward bound.
And little pieces of her crew were all they ever found.
A little after midnight, though, we heard the doctor shout,
Beneath the metal decking, there are tribbles still about!
We knew the Bird of Prey had carried ours to Klingon space.
At first we thought these must be ghosts, like Carmen Whats-her-face.
ÇChorusÈ * They’re making spooky noises on the floor beneath my bed! *
Our engineer is no one’s god, no matter what he’d thought
The guy had seemed to think that every tribble had been caught.
And when he learned that fools there be who’d failed to find a few,
Our engineer would yield to none at putting down the crew.
Our cook had made a real hot date to do it on the Moon.
And in his haste he left some dirty forks and knives and spoons.
The tribbles came and stole the stuff the cook forgot to wash.
But some free-fall tribble gumbo always makes a lovely nosh.
ÇChorusÈ * My God now here come five of them; how quickly they’ve rebred! *
The crew is back together, and I sit here at my post.
The tribbles now are all forgot, well then again, almost.
Transporter beams got scrambled where a nest of them had bred,
And somewhere down at StarFleet are two men with tribble heads.
I was sitting on a tribble when the thought occurred to me,
An anti-matter self-destruct would purge them easily.
So give me one more ship to sail, a star to guide her to.
My God, what have I done? But it was what I had to do.
| Chorus: |
But the tribbles are alive and well. All hands, Condition Red! * They tried to use the airlock, so I gave them Bones instead. * If prayers can stir the gods in space where none hear you implore, Let’s pray next generation makes sure none may pass their door. That’s what bio-filters are for. |