bn_songbook | Entries tagged with form_pun

You're viewing

bn_songbook
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: light

Durian is a large tropical fruit known for its tough, spiky exterior (you don't want to be hit with one), delicate yet unctuous floral taste, and a peculiar and penetrating smell which to some resembles rotting garbage. Some countries where it is popular don't allow it to be carried in enclosed spaces such as subways for this reason. If black tea flavored with bergamot is Earl Grey, would black tea flavored with durian then be Durian Grey? And will drinking it then confer eternal youth? Perhaps... but consider the cost.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
portions of the melody are borrowed from Leslie Fish's setting of Rudyard Kipling's "Our Fathers of Old" and Cynthia McQuillin's "The Wild Hunt"

listen to this song

A tale of a fruit-infused tea I will tell

And the one who imbibes it will not age a day

But their friends will all faint from the... curious... smell...

Of the pitcher of Durian Grey

This one was done just for the pun at first, but it ended up as a touching (I think) crossover fanfic mashup.

It will make more sense if you've seen Babylon 5 and read A Fire Upon the Deep: In each story arc, at a climactic moment (the turning point in the middle of the story in one case, the denoument in the other), one of the many protagonists in the ensemble cast chooses to fulfill their destined role in the battle against an ancient trans-human evil, bidding their companions a fond farewell and stepping into a Transcendent machine, never to return in the same form.

In B5 the character is (or will become) the legendary hero Valen, while in aFutD some of the companions are members of the species known to the reader as Tines, a race of wolf-like creatures with hive-minds where several individual bodies come together to be one individual person. Valen... Tines... you get where this is going.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "To My Valentine" by S.J. Tucker

listen to this song

( Read more... )

A silly song that was done just for the pun and (I hope) doesn't outstay its welcome.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Lucille" by Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum

listen to this song

( Read more... )

This mashup — based on a typo! — of The Last Unicorn (and its theme song) and the Transformers movie may be one of the most 80s things I've ever written.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "The Last Unicorn" by America

listen to this song

( Read more... )

This song is a setting of a verse of Psalm and also a video game meme.

The verse is Psalms 51:12, לֵב טָהוֹר בְּרָא-לִי אֱלֹהִים וְרוּחַ נָכוֹן חַדֵּשׁ בְּקִרְבִּי: lev tahor b'ra li, elohim, v'ru'ach nachon chadesh b'kirbi (create for me a pure heart, O G-d, and renew within me a right spirit). Why is this a video game meme? Because the Hebrew word for "within me" is also the name of Nintendo character Kirby — and the Hebrew word for "spirit" also means "wind" or "breath", which is Kirby's main form of attack/interaction.

The meme image (below) was made first, and shows Kirby performing his iconic inhale attack, captioned with the verse in Hebrew. But then I thought, why not set this verse to music from one of Kirby's games?

lyrics from Psalm 51:12, trad. Hebrew
ttto: "Cloud Stage" from Kirby's Adventure by Hirokazu Ando

listen to this song

( Read more... )

What if May Day, but more cyberpunk? Pun very much intended.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Merry May Folk" by Arthur Hinds

listen to this song

( Read more... )

The classic folk/prog rock band Jethro Tull is named for an Englishman who was in turn named for the Biblical Yitro, Moshe's father-in-law. And Yitro had some important advice for Moshe about learning to delegate. Naturally that advice needed to be worked into a Jethro Tull parody, but what to do with "Tull"? — there is no "uh" sound in Hebrew. But the soft "a" of "tal", is pretty close, and "tal" is dew, one of two kinds of precipitation which occur in the Holy Land and also figure prominently in the Jewish imagination.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman
ttto: "Jack in the Green" by Ian Anderson

listen to this song

( Read more... )

Another song about the true horror that is parasitoid wasps.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Singin' in the Rain" by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown

listen to this song

( Read more... )

I couldn't find a way to make the chorus of "307 Ale" work here, particularly in that the brand name of the product is the final pun drop and would curdle if repeated too many times.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "307 Ale" by Tom Smith (verse)

listen to this song

( Read more... )

The stsho are an enigmatic alien race in C. J. Cherryh's Chanur series. They are timid, conniving, decorous, and prone to changing personality and gender under stress. A background presence for most of the series, in Chanur's Legacy we finally get to meet them up close. It's surprising how much of the original Queen song survived this process...

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Show Must Go On" by Queen

listen to this song

( Read more... )

I'm fortunate not to have any (known) food allergies (for now), but I have friends with serious nut allergies — this one's for you.

content warning: explicit description of serious allergy symptoms

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer

( Read more... )

Based on Children of the Sky, the sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan

( Read more... )

A song in praise of soy sauce.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Tomorrow" from Annie by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin

listen to this song

( Read more... )

Hanging out with a certain circle of friends from Bryn Mawr College has firmly associated the words "roses, too" with feminism, activism, and amazing pagan potlucks. Those who feed those who march also fight for justice.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Bread and Roses" by James Oppenheim, set to music by Mimi Farina

listen to this song

( Read more... )

I have loved, and lived with, more than one knitter. Here's to all of them.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "The Queen of Argyll" by Andy M. Stewart

listen to this song

( Read more... )

A song for Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Material Girl" by Madonna

listen to this song

( Read more... )

Writing this was the only way to get the source song out of my head.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Jingle Bell Rock" by by Joseph Carleton Beal and James Ross Boothe

listen to this song

( Read more... )

A song about intellectual challenge and mastery, entirely driven by a terrible pun.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

listen to this song

( Read more... )

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "How Can I Keep from Singing?" by Anne Warner and Rev. R. Lowry

listen to this song

( Read more... )

Based on this scene from Final Fantasy VI.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Ticket to Ride" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

listen to this song

( Read more... )

Profile

Ben's Songs

March 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jun. 9th, 2025 01:23 am

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios