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

Today, I woke up with a song in my head. Part of the lyrics go like this:

'Why do you march through that dream that you're in --
Covered in glory and rusty old tin...'

I didn't know why I was thinking of it, but I knew where it was from. 'Man of La Mancha', one of my favourite operas...er, musicals. (The difference is technical, and slight, in my book.) I went looking for the rest of the words, satisfied my curiosity on that score, and then got nosy about the lyricist, a man named Joe Darion.

Nobody seems to know much about him. He wasn't all that famous. Wikipedia even has his birth year wrong. He was born on 30 January 1911, so he has a birthday coming up. He was 90 when he died.

Darion wrote lyrics to everything from pop songs to oratorios. He's responsible for the lyrics to the musical version of 'Archy and Mehitabel', which contains this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsahHmBL8u0

If you find this song inspiring, you might want to watch the animated version with the original singers from the 1950s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l_t1idrkFA

Kafka it ain't. It's MUCH better than Kafka. Says an old German teacher. I'll take Archy the Cockroach over Gregor Samsa any day.

I can't find the oratorio about Galileo, or the cantatas. One was called 'Mass for Cain'. I'd like to hear this. He wrote the lyrics to 'Ricochet', a novelty song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6KWUWe0hNY

Yeah, okay, it's silly - but what clever lyrics. He also wrote the words to the 'Ho-Ho Song', a 1953 hit for Red Buttons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8qncvHVj3A

Okay, cool fella. But what does this have to do with the songs about the knight who fights 'battles that aren't your own'? And that more famous song, the one that's probably forming in your head.

We almost didn't have those wonderful songs, you know. We wouldn't have, if playwright Dale Wasserman had been a snob. Thank the gods he wasn't. You see, the first lyricist hired for 'Man of La Mancha' was...

WH AUDEN

Auden was considered by many, apparently, as the greatest writer of the 20th Century. He's definitely considered a great poet - and hey, he's not too bad. Look at this one, 'The Fall of Rome':

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/fall-rome

Pretty good stuff. But could he write 'The Impossible Dream'?

Could he, heck no. Here's what Auden wrote:

http://act2playhouse.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/w-h-auden-and-man-of-la-mancha/

Mr Auden, we have an idea. Why don't you call up Pete Jackson and write something suitable for the next Hobbit movie? There's a good lad.

In case you don't remember, here's what Joe Darion, the not-so-classy poet, came up with instead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgzXwpePTTU

THE MORAL

Who was it said that it wasn't enough to be good - that you had to be good for something? I forget, but that's a very true statement. A poem can be a good thing. It can also be terribly self-indulgent. But a good set of lyrics - one that makes 'music and sweet poetry agree', in the immortal words of Shakespeare - can touch the hearts of millions. Something few poets manage to do.

So thank you, Joe Darion. My kind of genius. The guy who finds the right word for the right occasion.

POSTSCRIPT

Oh, and there was another reason WH Auden and Dale Wasserman didn't agree. Auden didn't like the premise of 'Man of La Mancha'. He thought Wasserman was taking liberties with Cervantes. Of course he was. Wasserman's version is much better. As Wasserman said, 'The novel is bleak, it renounces dreams...Quixote dies sane and beaten. The madness is what I love, and it`s what the people in the play respond to.'

Amen, brother. Long live the Impossible Dream.

And now, enjoy the song I woke up with, and the pantomime mules:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9cEElJO44c

If you're like me, the Auden poem will stick you with another improved lyric, which I think is better than Auden's poem. Can you guess...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs3xXlXSOKk

I can tell you why you woke up with that song!

Just yeasterday I read that they have now (probably) found the remains of Cervantes. Unfortunately there was more than one person 'buried' in the niche under that church in Madrid. So they are not (yet) sure which bones belong to him.

That is so !

Thanks, Tav!

Sure, Cervantes was sending us a h2g2 message.