Week 569: Murphy's Lore


This week's contest comes to you directly from the plaintive pixels of up-and-coming Loser Eric Murphy of Chicago, who e-mailed the Empress: "I just signed a lease for a new apartment with my girlfriend, and her grandparents are not especially keen on the idea.

1. What could I say to them to allay their fears?

2. If I were to propose to said girlfriend, what methods should I avoid?

3. If the two of us made it all the way to the altar, what statements should I leave out of my wedding vows?"

Give Eric the advice he deserves on any of his questions.

First-prize winner receives the Inker, the official Style Invitational Trophy. First runner-up wins a bizarre vinyl LP record titled "Chevrolet Sings of Safe Driving and You," dating from the mid-'60s and intended for driver's ed classes. It features soupy folk-style arrangements of such classics as "Cities and Towns (Driving in City and Heavy Traffic)" and "Gentle Things (Adverse Condition Driving)." Other runners-up win the coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt. Honorable mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Magnets. One prize per entrant per week.

Send your entries via fax to 202-334-4312 or by e-mail to losers@washpost.com. Deadline is Monday, Aug. 8. Put the week number in the subject line of your e-mail, or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal address and phone number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results will be published Aug. 29. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The revised title for next week's contest is by Danny Bravman of Potomac.

Report from Week 565, in which we asked for songs, set to well-known tunes, that might substitute for the hard-to-sing "Star-Spangled Banner".

From the look of a large number of entries, you'd think we'd won independence from France.

Third Runner-Up: To "Wonderful World":

Don't care much about diplomacy;
We don't bother with complexity.
We cut issues down to black-and-white;
There's a 50-50 chance we're right.
But we're sure our every cause is just,
And if everyone were more like us
What a wonderful world this would be.

(Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

Second Runner-Up: To "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General":

We never disagree with anything our government might say,
We work from 9 to 5 and watch the tube for the rest of the day.
We function like automatons built to support society,
And that is why our life's so hard to face in full sobriety.
On Friday night we all get drunk, and Saturday, and Sunday, too,
To give us strength to go back and restart the whole workweek anew.
We're pegs who squeeze ourselves into the holes they've built to fit us in,
We are the very model of a patriotic citizen.

(Seth Brown, North Adams, Mass.)

First Runner-Up, the winner of the industrial-strength bubble gum food flavoring, plus a list of all the entries for Week 561 from Russell Beland, Brendan Beary and Peter Metrinko:

To "Be Our Guest":

We're the best! We're the best!
From Bombay to Budapest!
If you dare to disagree, we'll place you under house arrest!
We are strong! We are sure!
Patriotic to the core.
We're delighted and excited 'cause our states are all united!
Stripes and stars! Stars and stripes!
We will always be the types
To know our destiny is manifest!
So say it long and loudly, sing it strong and proudly,
We're the best! We're the best!
(It is France that we detest!)
We're the best! We're the best! We're the best!

(Barb Sarshik, McLean)

And the winner of the Inker:

To "Hello Muddah":

Hello Daddy, hello Mommy,
We're not Nazi, we're not commie.
All the world thinks we're a bully.
They don't seem to want to understand us fully.
Hello Mommy, hello Daddy.
Our great nation's not the baddie.
Put an end to this idea:
Give the finger to Iran and North Korea. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)

Honorable Mentions:

To "Do-Re-Mi":

Dough, a buck, the mighty buck.
'Ray! A cheer for U.S.A.,
Me, a fan of Uncle Sam,
Far and near he leads the way.
Sow the seeds of freedom wide,
La-di-da, we run the show.
Tee us off? You'd better hide!
And that brings us back to dough (oh-oh-oh). (Chris Doyle)

To the chorus of "You've Got a Friend":

You can shop anytime in the Land of Liberty,
The whole country, oh yeah, baby, is one big bazaar.
Winter, spring, summer or fall, It's waiting for you at the mall.
Crashed your hard drive? No need to worry:
You've got a car.

(Dave Prevar, Annapolis)

To "Frere Jacques":

Our love of freedom, love of freedom
You can't quench, you can't quench.
Yes, this tune is stolen, but we're very glad that
We're not French, we're not French.

(Roy Ashley, Washington)

To the Kit Kat jingle:
Give me a break, a big tax break,
Break me off a piece of that de-fi-cit.

(Grover Norquist, Washington)

(Dave Zarrow, Herndon)

To "One" from "A Chorus Line":

One superpower nation,
Betcha Britain's sorry now
One stunning Declaration,
A Constitutional wow!
Amendments to serve and protect you (unless you're gay)
It's just so great to be here in the U.S.A.!
One rough election season,
Makes you want to flee the nest,
But America is second best to none, son.
Hang on! Don't move to Quebec yet,
Quittez non! We're not quite a wreck yet,
We're still the one!

(Sara Simons, Washington)

To the "Final Jeopardy" tune:

Hail to thee, America!
Costly health care, guns and few French-speakers.
Income gaps that shock and awe,
That's why we're not Canada.

(Phil Frankenfeld, Washington)

To "Yesterday":

U.S.A., we're the best place in the world today
If you harm us we will make you pay
For God's behind the U.S.A.
We are free, but not as free as we used to be
Lost a bit of civil liberty
But otherwise, we're all happy.

(Eric Murphy, Chicago)

To "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover":

I'm looking over your new Range Rover,
Parked next to your Escalade,
I've got a Hummer to take to the mall
Over those speed bumps a full one-inch tall.
This nation's a great place for wild horses
Be they Vipers or SUVs,
So we'll kiss the Saudis' royal assets
Till cars run on batteries.

(Peter Metrinko, Plymouth, Minn.)

To "Pinball Wizard":

Ever since Columbus, we've landed on this shore.
From Miami up to Bangor, the rich ones and the poor.
And we just kept on coming, more and more and more,
Now the U.S. of America sure fights a pretty mean war.

(Russell Beland, Springfield)

And last:

To "Hey Ya":
Now, fellas! (Hey ya!)
Now what's cooler than cool?
(Global domination!)
I can't hear ya! I say what's, what's cooler than cool?
(Global domination!) All right! (15x)

(Kevin N. Mettinger, Warrenton)

More Honorable Mentions appear on washingtonpost.com.

We had more good suggested anthems than we had room for in the paper for Week 565 of The Style Invitational. Here are some more Honorable Mentions:


To "If I Only Had a Brain":

When the king imposed a tariff, he didn't even care if
It was more than we could pay.
Then the crates of tea were tossed into the harbor there in Boston,
Which is why we're here today.

When at first we faced the British, we felt a little skittish
And longed to run away.
But we fought hard and beat 'em, and we won the nation's freedom.
That is why we're here today. (Barb Sarshik, McLean, Va.)


To the "Green Acres" theme song:

A-merica's the place to be,
We don't want no monarchy!
As for princes, we'll take none,
We'll just elect another president's son. (Russell Beland, Springfield, Va.)


To "Ding, Dong, the Witch Is Dead":

Ding dong, We beat the Brits,
Which old Brits?
The sissy Brits! (Claire Tuley, Fairfax Station, Va.)


To "Every Breath You Take":

Every breath we take, every move we make,
Every bond we break, every book we take,
They'll be watching us.

Every single day, every word we say,
Every place we stay,
'Specially if you're gay,
They'll be watching us. (Joseph Romm, Washington)


To "YMCA":

Young man, now we're being attacked.
I said young man, you know it's a fact.
I said young man, with the Patriot Act
We can make you be unhappy . . .

It's fun to live in the U. S. of A.
It's fun to live in the U. S. of A.
We have stress techniques to harass and annoy.
We will jail every traitor boy. (Barb Sarshik, McLean)


To "Jingle Bells":

America, America,
It's such a crazy place
Super-size my curly fries
Or get out of my face,

America, America,
We truly are obese,
More cheese on my burger, please,
One nation under grease. (Josh Borken, Bloomington, Minn.)


To "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General":

We came from England, France, Ukraine, Belize, Nepal, Ruthenia,
From Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belarus, Armenia,
From Paraguay, Brazil, Japan, Taiwan, Siam, Algeria,
From Niger, Chad, Benin, Tunisia, Togo and Siberia. (Dean N. Alterman, Portland, Ore.)


To "Another Brick in the Wall":

We don't need no League of Nations, no
We don't need no Security Council veto
Hey, Europe, leave U.S. alone. (Russell Beland)


To "The Stars and Stripes Forever":

The U.S. of A. is all right,
We have lots of contented consumers,
There's passable water to drink,
And the mail's really not too slow,
Our grocery store's open all night,
And my HMO's thinking 'bout my tumors,
We don't have to bother to think,
And on Election Day I'll vote on Karl Rove's say-so. (Bill Spencer, Exeter, N.H.)


To the chorus of "You Raise Me Up":

I have a house, and kids who are in college.
I have a car, plus more than I can say.
I thank the banks, for giving me the lev'rage,
You raised me up, to more than I can pay. (Dave Prevar, Annapolis)


To "Home on the Range":

Oh, give me a land where the mansions are grand
And the 95-octane abounds,
Where the cars are so wide they fit six side to side
Even though we're all 300 pounds. (Dan Seidman, Watertown, Mass.)


To "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall":

Ninety-nine bombs bursting up in the air,
Ninety-nine bombs in the air.
Rockets' red glare, our flag is still there,
Ninety-eight bombs bursting up in the air . . . (Frank Mullen III, Aledo, Ill.)


To "You're the Top":

We're the cop! We're the western marshal.
We're the cop! We're the law, impartial . . .
The world's a fearful place, a basket case, a flop.
So who cares if we just shot 'em, we're the cop! (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)


To "America" ("My Country 'Tis of Thee"):

Our record sucks on race
Pollution's in our face
And we're obese.
We like huge SUVs,
We always aim to please,
Though we do the antitheses,
Like shoot for peace. (Jane Auerbach, Los Angeles)


To "409":

Well, we beat the British and we beat their best,
Glorious, glorious U.S.A.
The Monroe Doctrine took care of the rest,
Glorious, glorious U.S.A.

So now we have our very own U.S.A.
Glorious, glorious, glorious U.S., U.S.A., glorious U.S. . . . U.S.A. . . . glorious U.S.
Our three-branch, bicameral, democratic U.S.A. (Russell Beland)


To "You Can't Take That Away From Me":

The words that Lincoln wrote
In 1863,
The way we get to vote.
No, no! They can't take that away from me.

The right to know the news,
The right to disagree,
To pray the way we choose,
No, no! They can't take that away from me. (Barb Sarshik)


To "Mambo No. 5":

A little bit of lovely spacious skies,
A little bit of amber waves of grain,
A little bit of purple mountain range,
A little bit above the fruited plain . . . (Gene Brown , Concord, Calif.)


To "Do the Hokey Pokey":

We have the will to win,
We kick the British out,
We take some more states in
And we earn ourselves some clout.

We say it's okey-dokey
That we push the world around.
That's what we're all about! (Eric Murphy, Chicago)


To "The Way You Look Tonight":

Someday when you're feeling low
In Guantanamo,
You will come to know
That we don't love you
'Cause the way you look's not right. (Barb Sarshik and Leah Pike, McLean)


To the "Blue Danube" Waltz:

I love this land (America!)
It's ever so grand (America!)
I'll never bail out (America!)
Although I may pout (America!)
Just try it and see (America!)
I'm sure you'll agree (America!)
The ruling elite take a seat, and we cannot get them out. (Bill Spencer)


To (duh) "Over There":

Over there, over there,
You don't like the U.S.A., we don't care.
You don't have to tell us, we know you're jealous
And unlike the French we change our underwear . . . (Peter Metrinko, Plymouth, Minn.)


To "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover":

. . . We'd like to help you in your struggle to be free.
There must be fifty ways to cross our border:
You just slip into Maine, Jane.
Hide in the van, Stan.
You don't need to be shy, Di.
Just listen to me.
Hop on the truck, Chuck.
Pay a grand to the man and
Just get to L.A., Ray
And get yourself free. (Chris Doyle)


To the theme from "The Flintstones":

U.S.! We're the U.S.!
With our famed Stone Age mentality.
Hating is our bedrock
As is raging inequality. (Phil Frankenfeld, Washington)


To "If I Were a Rich Man":

How I love my country
I would never think to move away to any other land
For it's true that English is the one
Language that I understand. (Dean N. Alterman, Portland, Ore.)


To "I Get a Kick Out of You":

We get no thrill from champagne.
Chic Frenchy wine sends no chill up our spine.
So then why do aristocrats joke
When we get a kick out of Coke?

We never eat quiche Lorraine,
Beef bourguignon makes us want to poupon.
And the world always overreacts
When we want to snack on Big Macs. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)