Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Today’s Zippy has Mr. Toad back on the musical burlesque trail:

The model here is “Everything Happens to Me” (Matt Dennis / Tom Adair), a standard that’s been covered by many people (among them Frank Sinatra, Chet Baker, Rosemary Clooney, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald). The relevant part of the lyrics:

… I make a date for golf – and you can bet your life it rains.
I try to give a party – but the guy upstairs complains.
I guess I’ll go thru life just catching colds and missing trains;
Everything happens to me.

I never miss a thing – I’ve had measles and the mumps.
And every time I play my ace my partner always trumps.

… I telegraphed and phoned, sent an Air Mail Special, too;
You answer was goodbye – there was even postage due.
I fell in love just once, and then it had to be with you,
Everything happens to me…

Mr. Toad, characteristically, turns the rueful song into a triumph for himself.

This entry was posted on September 26, 2011 at 7:22 am and is filed under Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.