45. Musical Interlude

This week's Top 10 hits on the Wizarding Wireless Network...

In 10th place for the 3rd week in a row is this Romantic ballad by Clive Chive and His Playerless Orchestra:

I don't care, my darling, that you smell of clover,
Or that they hear your mooing from Sheffield to Dover,
Or even that you have brown splotches all over,
You're hardly a cow to me.

Though my love is as wide as the very wide ocean,
I can't help entertaining the suspicious notion
That somewhere, sometime, someone gave me a potion,
For I don't know why I love thee.

O dairy-maid, dairy-maid, dairy-maid fair!
I'm udderly captive to thee!
O dairy-maid, dairy-maid, dairy-maid fair!
Do you ruminate about me?

Moving up into 9th place out of 23rd is this political protest song from the up and coming "voice of the new wizarding generation," Ludwig van Bray. The track is titled, "Bitter Nothings."

I don't care if You-Know-Who
Does you-know-what to you,
Or if X number of his followers do
Such and so to your mother too!

You can go a place one mustn't name,
Your silly taboos are all the same,
You make vulgarity seem really lame,
So may You-Know-Who
Do the same to you!

Dropping to 8th place after two weeks at Number 2 is the title track from the singing-book soundtrack of Martin Miggs! Here is Emiliana di Tessitura singing, "My feet feel like dancing."

O, what a sensation!
Is it my imagination?
Or can it be that even though
My self-dancing shoes weren't lost in the snow
After all?

It's the feeling I get from seven-league boots,
Or sucking on candied eyes of newts;
My feet feel like dancing, they've cut their roots,
I'm going to the ball!

In 7th place is the reliable old money-maker, the Wizard of Pop, Elvis Jacksteen. This is his thirty-fourth top-ten hit since "I've got billywigs in my willybigs," back in 1976, and his current album, "I'm so old I had to dye my wig, but I'm still rockin'" went platinum before he even recorded it! To what does the greatest entertainer in wizarding memory attribute his success? "You will forget that I said this," says Jacksteen. "You will buy 14 of my records. At the count of three, wake up!" What a joker! Here is an excerpt from his number-seven hit, "So cool that you have to wear gloves to pick your nose."

Oo, witch, you're so sultry, my bifocals steam up when I'm near you;
Your voice is so sweet, I stuff buns in my ears when I hear you.
Your clothes are so sharp, you need but cross the garden to mow it;
But I am too old,
For your heart is so cold
That it would take aeons of global warming for you to bestow it.

Rising to 6th place after a series of magical mishaps destroyed the entire inventory of his nearest competitor (such as an entire warehouse in Cheapside falling into the Thames River), British hip-hop wizard Da Wiz not only sings and produces, but he also owns his own record company, UK Dukay. Here is a bit of his latest smash hit single, edited slightly for broadcast:

I say, I mean yo,
Dis Da Wiz, don't cha know,
Cruisin' your 'hood, as it were.
It's a happenin' scene,
Whatever that means,
So keep your ##### behind screens,
If you know what's good for her.

I'm Da Wiz on da prowl,
Hear me howl, hear me growl,
Aroooo! Or words to that effect;
So get hip to my jive,
I'm packin' wand and I'm live,
And if you think I won't drive
This low ridin' broomstick
All over your #####ing-### ####,
You're about to get wrecked,
Unless I'm quite incorrect.

Staying at 5th place for an amazing 45th consecutive week is Hamish McLethe's well-known humming song. One of the best-known singers on wizarding wireless, Hamish was laid low by a fly-by memory charm last April, and has never recovered his ability to remember the words to any song. Still, never one to give in to despair, Hamish has made a huge career comeback with his current album of hummed and mumbled classics, entitled "Something something something." Here's his rendition of "I haven't flown over Digby since then."

Mmmm mmm hmmmm hmmm hmmm,
Mmm mmm hmmmm hmm mmm,
Ya da dum deee dummm de dummmmm,
Ahum dumm de doo,
De doo doooo de dummm,
Da dumm dumm, dummm dumm dumm de dummm....

Already dropping to third after hitting number one in its first week of release is the show-stopping finale from the "Reconciliation Tour" album of the loudest band in the wizarding world, Nasal Drip. As you know, the band broke up again on the second night of the tour, but since then they've recorded another album called "Songs from the Cancelled Second Reconciliation Tour," which is expected to be released as soon as a number of lawsuits are settled. Here is their song, "I couldn't stand you when we were best friends."

If you wondered why I kept slipping toads into your bed,
Or why you kept finding your lunch alive and your familiar dead,
Look no further than the wizard who always had to eat
All your Bertie Botts beans that you didn't think were sweet.

I couldn't stand you when we were best friends;
I thought you were stuck-up and selfish even then.
I put up with your cheapness and whininess when
Your mother bought all my books five times in ten;
But now that we've left school, why put up with you?
This concert is over, I'm finished with you!

Due to a judge's finding that the song was plagiarized from the works of Sigmund Zeitdieb, who recently also proved in court that he wrote Einstein's theory of Relativity, Beethoven's 5th Symphony, and all of the plays of Shakespeare except Henry VI Part II, the number two song by Celestina Warbeck cannot be played at this time. However, it continues to sell huge numbers of MP3 spells and singing pamphlets, since the Wizengamot noted that Zeitdieb's previous victories have not prevented anyone listening to records of Beethoven or going to see Shakespeare in the West End. It's ironic, considering that the number two song is entitled, "I couldn't have jinxed it better myself." Instead, here's a word from your sponsor...

...Robbie here, speaking for the Magic Quill. I would love to get more riddles from you guys, but be sure to send me the answers as well. And more important than the riddles--yes! I mean that--are the story ideas that HARDLY ANYONE IS SUBMITTING. If you like the Magic Quill, please do your part to keep it going. Please! Tell me what happens next! And now, back to WWN...

Finally, in the number one spot on the Wizarding Wireless Charts is this exciting, catchy new single from the Weird Sisters, entitled, "Picking Up the Pieces."

If I play a sour note, baby, I hope I won't be pinched,
For I've only just started playing again since the last time I was splinched.
I'm not sure all the bits of me got put back the right way,
So bear with my bagpipes, baby, that's all I've got to say.

Oh, I'm picking up the pieces,
And paying heavy fines.
I didn't mean to apparate
To the Drumnadrochit mines.
Perhaps the dwarves had not seen men
In quite a length of time,
So they put my thumbs on backwards,
But otherwise I'm fine.

Be sure to pick up your pieces, by all your favorite wizarding bands, at Fermata and Slur's in the Street That Goes Uphill Both Ways, Hogsmeade! Anyone attempting to transcribe this program onto Muggle media will be banished to the Really Rare Bird Sanctuary off the coast of Idaho. If you would like a recording of this program, send fourteen galleons by owl to the WWN and a self-winding musical snuffbox will be sent to you by return owl. This has been a Quibble and Squawk production of the Wizarding Wireless Network. All gripes deserved!

+++ It's RIDDLE TIME! +++

Remember way back to Riddle #2? Reader Anna has this brilliant theory that I never thought of before: "I did not attribute the 'electric shock' Vernon Dursley received while choking Harry to Harry. Rather, I thought he received this shock because he was seriously threatening Harry's life. That would make the protective charm which Dumbledore put on Harry (or the Dursley household) when Harry was a baby 'kick-in' and prevent Harry from being seriously harmed. I could be mistaken but the way I understand the charm is that as long as Harry is at the Dursley's he cannot be seriously harmed - and as long as he can still call it home - the charm holds." Wow! Who would have thought of that?

Here is a Mother Goose riddle that my father taught me when I was a child, and which Corrine also suggested. There are lots of riddles of this type, which some of us may object to calling "riddles." Still, it has puzzled many mathematically-challenged children over the years!

When I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives;
And every wife had seven sacks,
And every sack had seven cats,
And every cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks, wives:
How many were going to St. Ives?

Also, our sometime contributor Lighthouse Junkie kindly suggested this riddle:

I am always hungry.
I must always be fed.
The finger that I lick
Will soon turn red.

Last week Annatar posed us a riddle. I don't know if it was better than the herring one, but the answer was: A hand writing! Also, props to all of you who figured out that Riddle "A" comes from the Bible, the book of Judges. Samson is the riddler, describing a honeycomb he found inside the carcass of a lion. Riddle "B" comes from Tolkien's famous chapter of "Riddles in the Dark" in The Hobbit, and the answer is "a fish." As for Riddle "C," Brian's guess (a clock striking 1:00) is brilliant, but wrong. It actually came from the fairy tale appropriately titled "The Riddle," found both in the Grimm Fairy Tales and in the Green Fairy Book. It describes a raven who died of poisoning. Its flesh was cooked in a stew and served to 12 people, who all died from eating it.

Oh, and if E. F.'s non-riddle stumped you, I hope I never survive a plane crash near where you live.

Were these puzzlers too easy for you? Give me something better to use next time!

[Originally posted 3/24/05]