!@#?!*

[spatch]

eclecticavatar was quietly ruminating recently about songs based on fairy tales, such as Peter Gabriel's "Kiss That Frog" (c'mon!) and the first song that came to my mind was Sam The Sham & The Pharaoh's "Little Red Riding Hood" which includes some immortal lines such as

What a big heart I have
The better to love you with
Little Red Riding Hood
Even bad wolves can be good

but it also reminded me that Sam The Sham wrote what's probably the bestest breakup song ever, yes, even beating out the Ben Folds Five's "AND! DON'T! FOR!GET! MY! BLACK! T!SHIRT!"

The song is called "I Couldn't Spell !@#*?!" (punctuation spelling my own) and for the purposes of vocalization, the "!@#*?!" is pronounced "pbbbbththth." I remember my grandpa singing the chorus during car trips, but I don't think he included all the verses. I'm including most of the lyrics here not as an obtuse LJ way of saying "OMGZ I GOT DUMPED" cause, uh, one has to be in a relationship first to get dumped, so I'm posting the lyrics for gits and shiggles:

Drew a mustache on your picture
Threw your ring away
I'd-a wrote you a letter, but I couldn't spell !@#*?!
And that's all I got to say
That's all I got to say

When I learned that you'd been untrue
Not a minute did I delay
I'd-a wrote you a letter, but I couldn't spell !@#*?!
And that's all I got to say

I even went to where we used to go
Outside of town
I found the tree where we carved our names
And chopped that jive thing down

Burned the tie you gave me
Never dug it anyway
I'd-a wrote you a letter, but I couldn't spell !@#*?!
And that's all I got to say
That's all I got to say

I used to have this on a mix tape right before Shel Silverstein's incredibly smutty "Stacy Brown's Got Two." I think I taped 'em both off Dr. Demento. If the Dr. Demento online show archives hadn't been so cruelly C&Ded, I'd be grabbing them both tonight and putting them up for you an' your nistenin' peasure.