Filk for a Tuesday
veejane wrote a wonderful piece on Kevin Millar, one of the Red Sox team leaders for the last few years. It was so good I felt inspired, so I wrote a filk based on it. Here it is:
The Ballad of Kevin Millar
(to the tune of "Alma", by Tom Lehrer)
The luckiest guy on the Red Sox,
A player named Kevin Millar,
Was a favorite up in the press box,
Despite never being a star.
His talents were many and notable,
Though not all athletically based,
He was always so wonderf'ly quotable,
Never letting a quip go to waste.
Kevin, tell us,
All baseball players are jealous,
How did this "Idiots" thing
Help you capture a World Series ring?
He started as a strike replacement,
A scab who crossed the picket line,
The union then used this debasement
To his membership papers decline.
He eventually got to the big show,
Where he proved he could hit pretty well,
But the Marlins had not all that much dough,
And so they decided to sell.
Kevin, tell us,
All baseball players are jealous,
How did this "Idiots" thing
Help you capture a World Series ring?
The Chunichi Dragons attempted
To take Kevin off to Japan,
But Pitiless Theo preempted
Their efforts by claiming the man.
And so Kevin wound up in Fenway,
Where they kept losing time and again.
He said "Cowboy up! Now let's go play.
Let's show all these fans we can win."
Kevin, tell us,
All baseball players are jealous,
How did those shots of Jim Beam
Help to make the Red Sox a great team?
You all know the rest of the story,
The Sox caught lightning in a jar,
They covered themselves all in glory,
In a tale that was truly bizarre.
And that is the story of Kevin,
Who the Sox now have dropped from the team.
His dorkiness went to eleven,
And he achieved the impossible dream.
Kevin, tell us,
All baseball players are jealous,
How did this "Idiots" thing
Help you capture a Series,
There's so many theories,
'Bout getting that World Series ring?
---
This turned out to be harder than I thought it would. Usually when I write a filk, it's because a subject and a tune came together in a flash, so it sort of writes itself. This one started with a subject, but no tune, and I needed to find a song where the main character's name had the same cadence as "Kevin Millar". I considered using Lehrer's "Werner von Braun" or Sondheim's "Charles J. Guiteau," but neither thrilled me (although "von Braun" would be great for a song about perpetual free agent). "Alma" had the requisite ballad structure. Then it became a matter of trying to come up with decent rhymes for "Red Sox" and "Fenway" and suchlike. Lehrer is so very fond of two syllable rhymes. Most of the time I just tried to get close. (Although, I suppose I could've used "Ben Gay" with "Fenway.")
The Ballad of Kevin Millar
(to the tune of "Alma", by Tom Lehrer)
The luckiest guy on the Red Sox,
A player named Kevin Millar,
Was a favorite up in the press box,
Despite never being a star.
His talents were many and notable,
Though not all athletically based,
He was always so wonderf'ly quotable,
Never letting a quip go to waste.
Kevin, tell us,
All baseball players are jealous,
How did this "Idiots" thing
Help you capture a World Series ring?
He started as a strike replacement,
A scab who crossed the picket line,
The union then used this debasement
To his membership papers decline.
He eventually got to the big show,
Where he proved he could hit pretty well,
But the Marlins had not all that much dough,
And so they decided to sell.
Kevin, tell us,
All baseball players are jealous,
How did this "Idiots" thing
Help you capture a World Series ring?
The Chunichi Dragons attempted
To take Kevin off to Japan,
But Pitiless Theo preempted
Their efforts by claiming the man.
And so Kevin wound up in Fenway,
Where they kept losing time and again.
He said "Cowboy up! Now let's go play.
Let's show all these fans we can win."
Kevin, tell us,
All baseball players are jealous,
How did those shots of Jim Beam
Help to make the Red Sox a great team?
You all know the rest of the story,
The Sox caught lightning in a jar,
They covered themselves all in glory,
In a tale that was truly bizarre.
And that is the story of Kevin,
Who the Sox now have dropped from the team.
His dorkiness went to eleven,
And he achieved the impossible dream.
Kevin, tell us,
All baseball players are jealous,
How did this "Idiots" thing
Help you capture a Series,
There's so many theories,
'Bout getting that World Series ring?
---
This turned out to be harder than I thought it would. Usually when I write a filk, it's because a subject and a tune came together in a flash, so it sort of writes itself. This one started with a subject, but no tune, and I needed to find a song where the main character's name had the same cadence as "Kevin Millar". I considered using Lehrer's "Werner von Braun" or Sondheim's "Charles J. Guiteau," but neither thrilled me (although "von Braun" would be great for a song about perpetual free agent). "Alma" had the requisite ballad structure. Then it became a matter of trying to come up with decent rhymes for "Red Sox" and "Fenway" and suchlike. Lehrer is so very fond of two syllable rhymes. Most of the time I just tried to get close. (Although, I suppose I could've used "Ben Gay" with "Fenway.")