Shai Nuff

[billroper]

I blame catalana. tarkrai's and scs_11's song, Shai, had been nominated for a Pegasus award for Best Battle Song and I'd learned it to sing it for the Pegasus concert at LACon IV. But she wanted to have someone else sing it at OVFF, because I had The Destroyer nominated in the same category and she (justifiably) wanted to get someone else to sing it.

No problem. Smac could sing it. Except he was in Germany.

No problem. Simmons could sing it. Except he was radioactive and not coming to the con.

Someone was going to have to learn a really long song. But in case no one was available to learn a song that long, daisy_knotwise and I decided it could be lightly abridged if necessary...

Words: Bill and Gretchen Roper
Music: Talking Blues

Shai Nuff

Now life on Coby really sucks
So we set out to make some bucks.
As mercenaries we saw sky
Until we ran into – Dorsai.

They wanted us for cannon fodder,
But those green and black guys oughter
Know that we would never stand
For dying in their stupid plan.

Live fast, die young, leave a handsome corpse.
Bullshit!

Now my bud, Tommy, thought he might
Have a way to win this fight.
The Dorsai thought his plan was fine
For a guy who grew up in a mine.

They used to call him the Bobcat Wizard.
When he asked the girls, “Did the earth move for you?”
He really meant it.
And they all dug him too.

We let the bad guys pass by day,
Then dug a big fort out of clay.
And when they straggled back at dawn,
They wondered just what they’d been on.

“Where the hell did that come from?”
We told them they’d better surrender
And they said, “Sure!”
Just because there were fifty of us and a thousand of them
Doesn’t mean they had a chance.
Who did they think was writing this song anyway?
Neil Young?

So when the other guys had gone,
They told us we were stayin’ on.
Seems that we’re the kind of guy
That they can use on the Dorsai.

Live fast, die young, leave a handsome corpse.
Or maybe just skip the “die young” part.

The moral of our story is:
If you can’t be good, be lucky.
If you can’t be lucky, be smart.
And if you can’t manage any of the three,
Try to stay out of songwriting, ok?

Shai Dorsai, y’all!

Comments

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

You are an evil man. Yes, that's a compliment. :)

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Like Frank Hayes's "Matty Groves," the Cliff notes version (Clyf notes?) provide a superb and humerous intro / overview to the long original.

So Steve was radioactive? Are you talking figurative or literal? (Seeing how as in my kind of job, the latter is a real possibility.)

[billroper]

That would be Steve's story, which I'll leave for him to tell...