Here are songs I wrote in 2007 to Roald Dahl’s lyrics for Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Mike Teavee and Violet Beauregarde. No lyrics were added to Roald Dahl’s original text, but words were deleted to create songs of reasonable length. For educational use only, to see how existing lyrics can be given different musical treatments.
SONGS IN MP3 – LISTEN
AUGUSTUS GLOOP
“Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop!
The great big greedy nincompoop!
How long could we allow this beast
To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast
On everything he wanted to?
Great Scott! It simply wouldn’t do!
Chorus
He’s so unutterably vile,
So greedy, foul, and infantile
‘Come on!’ we cried, ‘The time is ripe
To send him shooting up the pipe!
Chorus
But don’t, dear children, be alarmed;
Augustus Gloop will not be harmed,
Although, of course, we must admit
He will be altered quite a bit.
He’ll be quite changed from what he’s been,
When he goes through the fudge machine:
Slowly, the wheels go round and round,
The cogs begin to grind and pound;
Chorus
This greedy brute, this louse’s ear,
Is loved by people everywhere!
For who could hate or bear a grudge
Against a luscious bit of fudge?”
Chorus
Great big greedy, great big greedy
Nin-com……………………. POOP!
**********************
VIOLET BEAUREGARDE
Violet Beauregarde, Violet Beauregarde
“Dear friends, we surely all agree
There’s almost nothing worse to see
Than some repulsive little bum
Who’s always chewing chewing gum.
(It’s very near as bad as those
Who sit around and pick the nose).
So please believe us when we say
That chewing gum will never pay;
Violet Beauregarde, Violet Beauregarde
She chewed while bathing in the tub,
She chewed while dancing at her club,
She chewed in church and on the bus;
It really was quite ludicrous!
And when she couldn’t find her gum,
She’d chew up the linoleum,
For years and years she chewed away,
Consuming fifty packs a day,
Violet Beauregarde, Violet Beauregarde
Her brain now hurts from chewing gum
Miss Violet’s becoming dumb
Might spent her life shut up in some
Disgusting sanatorium.
And that is why we’ll try so hard
To save Miss Violet Beauregard
From suffering an chewing fate.
She’s still quite young. It’s not too late,
Provided she survives the cure.
We hope she does. We can’t be sure.
Violet Beauregarde, Violet Beauregarde
Violet Beauregarde, Violet Beau-Beau-Beau-Beauregarde
***********************************
VERUCA SALT
Down goes Veruca down the drain
(Down goes Veruca down the drain) 2x
“Veruca Salt, the little brute,
Has just gone down the garbage chute,
To see the thing completely through,
We’ve polished off her parents, too.
(To see the thing completely through, – We’ve polished off her parents, too.)
And here, perhaps, we should explain
That she will meet, as she descends,
A rather different set of friends
To those that she has left behind–
(A fish head, for example, cut – This morning from a halibut.)
A bacon rind, some rancid lard,
A loaf of bread gone stale and hard,
A steak that nobody could chew,
An oyster from an oyster stew,
(Some liverwurst so old and gray – One smelled it from a mile away,)
CHORUS Down goes Veruca down the drain
(Down goes Veruca down the drain) 2x
For though she’s spoiled, and dreadfully so,
A girl can’t spoil herself, you know.
Who spoiled her, then? Ah, who indeed?
Who pandered to her every need?
(Who spoiled her, then? Ah, who indeed? – Who pandered to her every need?)
BRIDGE (Who turned her into such a brat?
Who are the culprits? Who did that?)
Alas you needn’t look so far
(To find out who the sinners are)
They are (and this is very sad)
Her loving parents, MUM and DAD.
And that is why we’re glad they fell
Into the garbage chute as well.
(And that is why we’re glad they fell – Into the garbage chute as well.)
Down goes Veruca down the drain (Down goes Veruca down the drain)2x
*****************************************************
MIKE TEAVEE
V1 – “The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set–
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
V2 – In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
V3 – They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all the shocking ghastly junk.
Bridge – IT ROTS THE SENSES IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
V4 – So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
V5 – Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks–
End – P.S. Regarding Mike Teavee,
We very much regret that we
Shall simply have to wait and see
If we can get him back his height.
But if we can’t–it serves him right.”
***********************************
