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Biggus
04-22-2009, 10:20 AM
The Cole Porter classic “Anything Goes”
Is a song everyone knows
“In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows
Anything goes”
Which attempted to define
The moral decline
Well little did he know
How low morals would go
Now little is left to the imagination
When it come to female emancipation
Woman display themselves to readily
Or dress inappropriately
Their varying degrees of undress
Expose pierced and tattooed flesh
In thongs with exposed arses
Or skirts as short as west end farces
Naked midriffs of all shapes and sizes
Leaving no room for surprises
Flesh erupts like a muffin
Over waist bands unable to keep it in
And no one should ever wear Lycra
Unless their figure is micra
There are things that should remain hidden
And only revealed when bidden
Equally there are also things about a woman
That does not need to be revealed to a man
For example a cause of great consternation
Is that we get to here about their constipation
Loss of bladder control issues
Feminine freshness wipes and tissues
Then there is the shaving and waxing
And treatments men would find quite taxing
There are things we don’t need to see or hear
I just want to make that clear
One behaviour that’s quite disturbing
Is a mother in public breast feeding
Nursing a baby we don’t want to see
No matter how nice her nurses maybe
But the very worst thing to see
Is when they are out socially
Woman kind when emancipated
Failed to do what was anticipated
In taming the animal in men
And preventing his wildness emerging again
Instead women have fallen into the pit
And show know intention of leaving it
Laddettes and matrons who should know better
End up drunk laying in the gutter
Even at a holiday resort
Men look on as they disport
Cavorting bare chest-ed
Free of the clothes they have divested
As they display manicured muffs
And unmatched collar and cuffs
The tattooes, piercings and body art
Are the only way to tell them apart
Full of cocktails and beer
And the odd infection I fear
I’m not sure Mrs Pankhurst
When the idea struck her first
Envisaged that this would be the way of it
And Cole Porter didn’t know the half of it
“In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows
Anything goes”

AuntShecky
04-27-2009, 03:28 PM
Well, just by being a fan of Cole Porter, you've scored some
points.

In this tribute you've flattered-by-imitation his flashes of with as in these lines
[QUOTE=Biggus;708968

And no one should ever wear Lycra
Unless their figure is micra
There are things that should remain hidden
And only revealed when bidden

[/QUOTE]

However, there are some points with which I must take issue:

The meter is quite off in some lines, and wouldn't fit the tune, or any tune.

Also, your rhyme scheme is not very "Porterian" --to coin an adjective a la "Jeterian." Internal rhyme is one of Porter's trademarks.

The tongue-clicking over breast feeding is a little irresponsible, when every pediatrician on the planet will tell you that breast feeding is far, far superior and healthful than bottle feeding.


I have never seen the original musical "Anything Goes" but I suspect the lyrics as sung by the character who sings it --Reno Sweeney, perhaps? -- may have been ironic.

But the main thing that doesn't add up is that the speaker of this poem seems to believe that Porter himself was conservative when it came to moral issues.If you've read anything about Cole Porter's private life, or even if you've seen the Kevin Line movie of a couple of years ago, you would have known that Cole Porter's personal philosophy toward sexual "morality" was quite liberal -- "highly shocking," perhaps.



Nice try, though.