IF THE MUSIC AIN'T BAROQUE, FIX IT!
From the late 16th century to 1750
The music of Europe took a turn to the nifty.
This was an era when common folk
Went for Baroque.
Some composers were major
While others were minor, I'll wager.
Some were better than amateurs,
While others merely made overtures.
Some made grand cantatas,
Concertos and sonatas.
Some of the music was sharp
For the organ and for the harp,
But some, jumpin' Jehosaphat,
Was mostly flat.
The banality
Of some Baroque tonality,
As played on a hollow gourd
Or a bad-tempered clavichord,
Gave such a loud and cyclopean squawk...
That it could make Johann Sebastian balk.
Its rhetoric was a scandal,
More than George Frederick could Handel.
It kept Pachelbel
Scannin'
Past Taco Bell
For a Canon.
Maybe that was one of the reasons
Vivaldi left, well, at least for "Four Seasons."
FODDER OF HIS COUNTRY
If Washington chopped down a cherry tree,
And later dropkicked tyranny.
Colonial taxes had been costin'
Too much and were soakin' the folk,
But that Tea Party in Boston
Gave the tariffs themselves a soak.
(If those were sufficient taxes
To make the colonists revolting,
You should know the IRS never relaxes
Until it takes in withholding
Enough from last month's salary check
To buy an aircraft carrier deck).
Washington survived the snows of Valley Forge,
Or so we've heard,
To defeat in dire sessions
All the hired Hessians
Of old King George
The Third.
Then to complete the revolution,
A convention was called,
Where people with famous names overhauled
The constitution.
It makes my common sense go giddy
To think this was accomplished by... a committee.