Here's another animal song.
A year ago, last Thursday, I was strolling in the zoo,
When I met a man who thought he knew the lot.
He was laying down the law about the habits of babboons,
And the number of quills a porcupine has got.
So I asked him, "What's that creature there?"
He answered, "er, hit's a helk."
I might have gone on thinking that were true,
If the animal in question hadn't put that chap to shame,
When it remarked, "I hain't a helk! I'm a g-nu!"
I'm a g-nu, I'm a g-nu,
The g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo.
I'm a g-nu, how d'you do,
You really ought to k-now w-ho's w-ho.
I'm a g-nu, spelled G N U,
I'm g-not a camel or a kangaroo,
So let me introduce,
I'm g-neither man or moose,
Oh g-no g-no g-no, I'm a g-nu!
I had taken furnished lodgings down at Rustington-on-Sea,
Whence I travelled on to Ashton-under-Lime, it was actually.
And the second night I stayed there, I was wakened from a dream,
Which I'll tell you all about... some other time.
Among the hunting trophies on the wall above my bed,
Stuffed and mounted, was a face I thought I knew.
A bison? ... no, not a bison.
An okapi? ... unlikely.
Could it be a hartebeest?
Then I seemed to hear a voice: "I'm a g-nu!"
I'm a g-nu, a-g-nother g-nu.
I wish I could g-nash my teeth at you.
I'm a g-nu, how d'you do,
You really ought to k-now w-ho's w-ho.
I'm a g-nu, spelled G N U,
Call me bison or okapi and I'll sue;
G-nor am I in the least like that dreadful hartebeest,
Oh g-no g-no g-no, ...
G-no g-no g-no, I'm a g-nu!
G-no g-no g-no,
I'm a g-nu!
That's very g-nice of you.
Architecture, said Hagel, is frozen music, as you'll remember; Donald Swann's music has often been compared with defrosted architecture. Nowhere is this more evident than in his setting, a setting which has been described by critics all over this country as "spiffing", of this song --
