Not Required: THE NIGHTMARE SONG

LORD CHANCELLOR'S NIGHTMARE SONG
from Iolanthe , by Gilbert and Sullivan

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The nineteenth-century Gilbert and Sullivan operettas were once enormously popular and performed regularly all over the world. The music was by the British composer, Arthur Sullivan and the lyrics and book (libretto) were by Sullivan's compatriot, W. S. Gilbert, probably the "Father" of the Broadway lyricists who followed  him, though Gilbert's lyrics show an even higher level of literacy.
    The "Nightmare Song" almost puts Surrealism to shame with its anthology of delerious images that arise during the Lord Chancellor's nightmare. Yet it's all done in good fun.
    The song falls into the class of what are called "patter songs," where the rapid recitation of the lyrics is the primary interest, the melody simply a setting for the text. All of the Gilbert and Sullivans operas have at least one great patter song, but this patter song is probably the most bizarre. (The most famous patter song is the Major-General song from H.M.S. Pinafore.)
    Apart from patter songs, the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are full of glorious tunes and well worth checking out, both for their high level of musical writing (including orchestration) as well as for the literary quality of the lyrics. Among these 14 operettas, written jointly, the most famous are The Mikado (a satire on British bureaucracy but set in Japan), Patience (a satire on England's aesthetic movement), The Pirates of Penzance, and H.M.S. Pinafore (a satire on British class relations).

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Love unrequited, robs me of my rest,
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers,
Love, nightmare like, lies heavy of my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers.
When you're lying awake with a dismal headache and
Repose is taboo'd by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to
Indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire, the bed-clothes conspire of
Usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counter-pane goes, and uncovers your toes,
And your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles, you feel like mixed
Pickles, so terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you're hot and you're cross, and you tumble and
Toss 'til there's nothing 'twixt you and the
Ticking.
Then the bed-clothes all creep to the ground in a heap
And you pick 'em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to
Remain at it's usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a dose, with
Hot eye-balls and head ever aching,
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams
That you'd very much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing the channel, and
Tossing about in a steamer from harwich,
Which is something between a large bathing machine and
A very small second class carriage,
And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to
A party of friends and relations,
They're a ravenous horde, and they all come on board
At sloane square and south kensington stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney
(who started that morning from devon);
He's a bit undersiz'd and you don't feel surpris'd
When he tells you he's only eleven.
Well you're driving like mad with this singular lad
(by the bye the ship's now a four wheeler),
And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad
Names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can't stand so you throw up your hand,
And you find you're as cold as an icicle;
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold
Clocks) crossing sal'sbury plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew are on bicycles too, which they've
Somehow or other invested in,
And he's telling the tars all the particulars of a
Company he's interested in;
It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices, all
Good from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers
As though they were all vegetables;
You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman
(First take off his boots with a boot tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will
Shoot, and they'll blossom and bud like a fruit tree;
>From the green grocer tree you get grapes and green
Pea, cauliflower, pine apple and cranberries,
While the pastry cook plant cherry brandy will grant,
Apple puffs, and three corners, and banburys;
The shares are a penny and ever so many
Are taken by Rothschild and Baring,
And just as a few are allotted to you,
You awake with a shudder despairing
You're a regular wreck, with a crick in the neck, and
No wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor
And you've needles and pins from your soles to your
Shins, and your flesh is acreep, for your left leg's asleep,
And you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose,
And some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue,
And a thirst that's intense,
And a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has pass'd, and it's daylight at
Last, and the night has been long, ditto, ditto my song,
And thank goodness they're both of them over!

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