No. 14 - Song - Governor Griffenfeld

from "His Excellency"
Music by Frank Osmond Carr
Words by W. S. Gilbert
Sequenced by Colin Johnson
All Rights Reserved

By F. Osmond Carr
Generated by NoteWorthy Composer

[Griffenfeld:] Quixotic is his enterprise, and hopeless his adventure is,
Who seeks for jocularities that haven't yet been said.
The world has joked incessantly for over fifty centuries,
And ev'ry joke that's possible has long ago been made.
I started as a humorist with lots of mental fizziness,
But humour is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse;
For my stock in trade, my fixtures, and the goodwill of the business
No reasonable offer I am likely to refuse.
And if anybody choose
He may circulate the news
That no reasonable offer I am likely to refuse.

Oh happy was the humourist- the first that made a pun at all-
Who when a joke occurred to him, however poor and mean,
Was absolutely certain that it never had been done at all-
How popular at dinners must that humourist have been!
Oh the days when some stepfather for the query held a handle out,
The doormat from the scraper, is it distant very far?
And when no one knew where Moses was when Aaron put the candle out,
And no one had discovered that a door could be a-jar!
But your modern heroes are
In their tastes particular,
And they sneer if you inform them that a door could be a-jar!

To ask a riddle nowadays a vain attempt to cozen is-
The prehistoric humourist could always raise a laugh
By asking what the estimate for herrings, by the dozen, is
When you've ascertained the value of a herring and a half.
But nowadays no species of mnemonical erasure can
Make men forget that Eg-ham when upset produces Staines,
And who could raise a titter by suggesting that a glazier can
Depend upon the best remuneration for his panes?
Oh, these cultivated Danes
Won't employ their subtle brains
With a play of words on glazier and domestic window panes.

In search of quip and quiddity I've sat all day, alone, apart-
And all that I could hit on as a problem was- to find
Analogy between a scrag of mutton and a Bony-part,
Which offers slight enjoyment to the speculative mind:
For you cannot call it very good, however good your charity-
It's not the sort of humour that is greeted with a shout-
And I've come to the conclusion that the mine of jocularity,
In present Anno Domini, is worked completely out!
Though the notion you may scout,
I can prove beyond a doubt
That the mine of jocularity is utterly worked out!

Karaoke version compiled by Colin Johnson

No. 14 - Song - Griffenfeld
Soft karaoke
Words
Griffenfeld
Right Hand
Left Hand