Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 166
Featured commentary
When ‘a modesty’ takes your place
S
o I attended the local
performance of “The Music
Man” last Saturday and, of
course, it still had the song “SeventySix Trombones” in it. And, of
course, I sang along.
Well, at least in my head.
You see, many years ago I, and my
classmates, were forced by an evil
grade-school music teacher, to learn
the words to that song. And it is only
now that I realize just how evil he
really was.
It’s not just because he jammed
the lyrics in my head, and they are
now taking up space where my
investment sense should be.
That’s forgivable.
No, he was especially evil because
he put the wrong lyrics in my head.
As the primary example, the
actual summing-up line in the song
goes:
“Then, I modestly took my
place as the one and only bass,
and I oompahed up and down
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
the square.”
The correct mental picture here
would be of someone humbly
stepping into line in a marching
band, carrying a sousaphone, and
sounding his big horn proudly and
tunefully as the band moved about
the town square in front of cheering
crowds.
However, the lyrics I learned were
“Then a modesty took my place as
the one and only bass ….”
This absolutely changes
everything — and points out the real
sadism the teacher employed.
First of all, there is no such
Walker
Continued from A2
with the actual words the
songwriters put down.
I mean, did the “West
Side Story” lyrics for
“Maria” really go as the
following?
“Maria …
Say it loud when there’s
thing as a modesty. That means
this teacher deliberately damaged
our collective vocabularies to
demonstrate his superiority and
to, generally, mess with our heads.
He probably thought it was funny.
There is “modesty,” surely, but it is
behavior, not a physical object or, as
in this case, a person.
You see, as I remember it, when
our music man was asked what a
modesty was, he replied that it was a
kind of musical understudy — with
the implication that the singer of the
lyrics had been thrown out of the
band for some improper behavior or
lack of effort or some such, and that
his understudy had taken his place
… “A modesty took my place as the
one and only bass….”
Now, naturally, one would feel
incredibly slighted by this. This
upstart, no-talent modesty has
taken your place as the band’s most
important member, and he is getting
all the glory.
music playing,
Say it soft and it’s almost
like spraying.”
Or maybe that’s
something we made up on
the playground.
Anyway, this mental
sifting and scraping-away
of false lyrics may take
some time, my friends. So
know that, when you hear
me singing, badly, and at
inappropriate times, I am
only following a 12-step
What do you do?
Well, you oompah up and down
the square, of course.
But this is no longer a pretty thing.
You aren’t playing with the band
here.
In my mind, the band has moved
on down Main Street and the crowds
have followed it. You are left, all by
yourself, petulantly crisscrossing
the square and blatting out your
frustration through your humongous
instrument, hoping someone will
remedy the situation. (I guess, in my
mind, the understudy had his own
horn.)
Now, I will admit that time
has clouded, a bit, what the
teacher actually said and what my
wandering attention dressed it up
with. But even so, these are the
things that warp young minds, my
friends. And I hereby submit to the
celestial judges that I am forever
scarred by the images this teacher
sullied my innocence with.
program to enlightenment.
Now I here, in print and
infinity, forgive our sadistic
and sometimes violent music
teacher. He certainly must
have had his own issues.
And, really, who wouldn’t
want to kick kids with his
cowboy boots when they
refused to learn show tunes?
Unworthy little ingrates.
Comment at jwalker@
the-signal.com or Twitter
@DontSeriously.
It would only follow that,
thereafter, every time I came up
short in my life, I would need to
bleat my troubles out to the world
like a lost lamb on a mountaintop,
hoping to get the attention of the
shepherd across the chasm.
Oh, the horrors. It’s the kind of
thing that leads to near-constant
whining and, eventually, to the
dread affliction of journalism and its
corresponding poverty.
Now, it would only make sense
that this cruel music teacher taught
us sweet children other perversions
of famous song lyrics — some of
which are probably still lurking in
my subconscious and leaking slow
poison or waiting to go off like time
bombs.
And I realize now I must root
them out by going back through all
the classic musicals of the day and
comparing my spotty knowledge
See WALKER, A3
