h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In high school, we performed "The Sound of Music" for the annual school musical. In trying to be timely, our French teacher suggested the following line...
"La - a French word meaning 'the.'"
We all ignored her because we felt she was quite potty, but it does fit lyrically and meets your demands!
- Jimi X

Hmmmm...I actually think that's a great idea! I like that one...potty and all as it is...

"La - is the reverse of 'aL'"

I'm really tired as you can see...

How about......

"La, a scouse band that are dead...."

Now while the La's (originators of "There she Goes" are not physically dead, they have moved onto the afterlife in other projects.

It does rhyme and sort of make sense.

I'll think of something better when I have my new brain installed.

Oh I don't know. I think the songwriter did "a note to follow so" on purpose. I used to write really bad love poetry. It was actually more like "I loved her but she left me so she was a bitch" poetry. And when I couldn't think of a line I'd fill it up with la's until something came to me.

So if he really didn't know what to put there it would have read, "LA, a la la la la SO!" I think he did pretty good, considering the obvious alternative.

Okay, so in all seriousness, the song does have to rhyme.
So.... for instance, the word "sun" as in "...drop of golden sun" rhymes with "run" as in "...long way to run."
And the word "SO" as in "...note comes after SO." is supposed to rhyme with "DO" as in "...brings us back to DO."

SO... ummmm... how about...
"LA ... it's Hammurabi's Code."

Okay, so that doesn't rhyme with DO, exactly. Well, we could just change DO to.. ummm... DODE. Look it's just a word right?

Oh fiddlesticks... that makes the begining "DO a dear" not make sense...

"DODE a word a senseless word." How about that?

There, that fixes it. All better.

Well, "la la la" is (allegedly) what you sing when you've forgotten the words, so how about
"La ... the lyrics you don't know"?

"La! Dis used in making dough"?

Your teacher should have taught you "La, en français c'est un mot." But the pronunciation would be wrong.
"L.A. - a place you shouldn't go."
The problem wit la is that it's the only one of the notes that isn't a word in english. Maybe another language? But in French it doen't work.
How about "La, it's not a word you know."

On the other hand I've got a two year old neice who watches something called TellyTubbies. I'm sure that one of them is called La and another Poe, so there might be a rhyme there.

That's the real mistake he made, not using an English word rhyming with 'La'... If only he had had the foresight to use the word 'Bar' the possibilities would have been endless. But I guess that's been our big problem this millenium - if only people had done things differently earlier on in it

Your Teletubby is Lala, which might also work with Po, but it's still making the best of a bad job.

It's not "MY" TellyTubby!

How about the title of this conversation until I posted?

La... latest three hours ago...

It even rhymes properly.

firstly, when i sing this song with my daughter, i always assume that i just cant remember the line for "La" and fill the void with a string of "La's"..."La, la la la la la la". i never imagined that the original line was as lame as "La, a line after So" or however it goes. That's probably why i forgot it (selective memory and the like). Secondly, perhaps we should just be happy with the knowledge that it wasnt "do re me fa so orange te do".

Sorry. I appreciate your concern for not being falsely 'outed' as a Teletubbies fan, although it isn't unheard of for grown adults to be seen eh-ohing down major high streets. We should all be on our guard!

Perhaps Teletubbies are something else we should consider putting to rest before the start of the next millenium.

Welllll, this line works perfectly, but it does require giving the rest of the song a bit of a makeover - however, I think most of you will like it:

Do* - a beer, I like my beer
Ray - a guy who buys me beer
Me - a guys who likes his beer
Fa - a place I go get beer
So - let's have another beer
La - ger is a type of beer
Ti - no thanks I'll have a beer
And that brings us back to beer, beer, beer, beer....

Well there you go - I can't take the credit for it, I heard it from a comedian.

*I'm not sure about the spelling of this beer, or where it's from, but I suspect it's probably Australian.

Sorry. I know Shelley meant well but if we're going to include this hear it's my duty as a Homer Simpson fan to make sure we get the quote right. It wasn't just "some comedian." It was Homer. A cartoon character who knows a lot more about this song than the rest of us.

And yes I'm sure variants on this song have existed since it was first made but this is the version of the song that I think should definitively solve our little millenium delirium, and carry us into the 21st century with the thoughts of Julie Andrews little more than a bitter aftertaste when you thought you were almost going to puke but didn't.

And now, without further ado.

DO RE MI DRINK
by Homer J. Simpson.

*ahem*

DOUGH... the stuff... that buys me beer...
RAY... the guy that sells me beer...
ME... the guy... who drinks the beer,
FAR... a long way to get beer...
SO... I'll have another beer...
LA... I'll have another beer...
TEA... no thanks, I'm drinking beer...
That will bring us back to...

(Looks into empty glass)

D'OH!

Interestingly enough, I entered this forum with a beer-related suggestion for 'La', namely:

La... half a pint of beer (ie. La is (roughly) half of the word 'La-ger' - no lamer than the original line!)

But I see Homer has beaten me to it! D'oh!! But I agree with ZachsMind that this version if far superior, although I think the La line should be replaced with, perhaps, 'La...ger, a type of beer' or somesuch, as suggested above, or my version.

It would also seem entirely appropriate to replace the original version with The Simpsons' version, as the 'family ideal' as portrayed in 'The Sound of Music' has now been replaced by a 'family' which, for most people, far more closely resembles The Simpsons!

'sus

La...ma's stepping on my toe?
ok.I'll go get another beer now
shazz

Perhaps it would be easiest to change "La". If we substitute some other one syllable word, the rewrite of the ditty becomes much simpler. As long as we're revising the line, why arbitrarily leave the first syllable alone? It's not as if people couldn't learn a new scale to sing: do, re, me fa, so, bar, ti do, for example.

Doesn't it say "to FOLLOW so"?

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Lala having fun with Po?

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