Jabberwocky

(version 3.0)
Music by Leonard Cohen ("Hallelujah")
Words by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll (as rearranged by Rich Brown)

I heard there was a vorpal sword,
That snickered through a spinal cord.
Do you find Carroll’s poetry too talky?
Those made-up words are treasure troves,
The ‘jubjub birds,’ the ‘borogoves,’
...the word I love the most is ‘jabberwocky.’

Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky

“Out there somewhere’s a catching claw,
A flaming eye, a toothy jaw.
To come back home alive, my boy, is the key.
Now take this lesson from your pa:
When something burbles from its maw,
Take care, you must beware the jabberwocky.”

Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky

He left his home and the mome wraths,
To rove and roam down unknown paths,
Galumphing even where the way was rocky.
With gleaming vorpal blade in hand,
He schemed, daydreamed, and laid a plan:
To meet, and to defeat, the jabberwocky.

Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky

So thought the boy so uffishly,
Then fought beside a tumtum tree,
’Til homeward through the tulgey wood did walk he.
He took with him a souvenir,
With darkened eye and deafened ear:
The severed head of the dead jabberwocky.

Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky

And when the lad came from the wood,
His dad said gladly, “Knew you could!
You’re beamish, so your being back don’t shock me.
‘Callay’, I say, and ‘Callooh’, too,
O frabjous day; I’m proud of you:
You slew - and cut in two - the jabberwocky.”

Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky