Hey, Heavyweight! (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   I was shipwrecked on the prairie With my fortunes on the wane The ex-roller skating champ of East St. Louis As expected I was wary Of ill winds that blew in vain But a wind that blew in tune together blew us   You were stunning in red gingham With your granny at your throat As you steered my battered coupe towards the oasis I wanna be your sugar daddy, dear Put your heavy hand in mine And the crowned heads of the rink will then embrace us   Hey, heavyweight!  Hey, heavyweight! Underneath the bright Manhattan moon Ha ha heavyweight you’ll change your tune and make me swoon away   Heavyweight, Muhammad Ali’s got nothing on you If you let me stand in your corner I promise, heavyweight, that I’ll never pull a punch Come rain or shine, sleet or snow ‘Til death do us part   Hey, heavyweight!  Hey, heavyweight! Underneath the bright Manhattan moon (underneath the harvest moon) Ha ha heavyweight you’ll change your tune and make me swoon away   Come the AM we’ll be homey; we’ll smoke smelly old cigars We will snuggle in our bed and watch Dick Cavett When his sponsors get their word in we’ll make heavy wholesome love We will stuff our mouths with cake and also have it   Hey, heavyweight!  Hey, heavyweight! Underneath the bright Manhattan moon (underneath the harvest moon) Ha ha heavyweight you’ll change your tune and make me swoon away   ©1971 Glittermimp Music/Unart Music Corp. BMI Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     There’s a Broken Heart for Every Rock and Roll Star on Laurel Canyon Boulevard (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   Sittin’ the railroad tracks I commenced to roll a stogey I felt a bit like Peggy Lee but looked much more like bogey Muskogee is a lonesome place; they took away my Nash I sat all day with my gun in hand writing songs like Hoagy   Polly’s cheeks are smooth as peach but mine are full of stubble Junie’s no abiding sort but she’s been got in trouble The rubble is a sad old sight but New York City ’s worse The subway’s done my nerves no good; I’m leavin’ on the double   We were comin’ through Topeka when I realized I was broken Orville lent no sympathy; he just kept on with his smokin’ Hoboken looked incredible but Boston looked like home I’ll roam with my guitar no more – I’m sick to death of folkin’   Hoboken looked incredible but Boston looked like home I’ll roam with my guitar no more – I’m sick to death of folkin’   ©1971 Glittermimp Music/Unart Music Corp. BMI Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     Basket Case (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   Papa’s into Dada and Mommy likes TV Domestic life is boring but we’re grateful to be free Grandpa has the trots again and brother’s losing weight An’ me, I’m sick of frozen food, so I’m waiting for a freight   Underneath the bandstand I met my one true love She tried on my boiler suit and I tried on her gloves My lady’s old and nasty but she makes a great hors d’œuvre I’d up and move to Texas if I only had the nerve   I feed my ego health food and wear my Levi’s® tight My father’s hair is turning gray ‘cos I alone bring light Into the pointless little lives that those I love must lead Sometimes I feel like giving up – sometimes I wish I could concede   ©1971 Glittermimp Music/Unart Music Corp. BMI Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     To You He’s Just a Cop But to Me He’s Mr. Right (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   When he passes on the avenue Grannies cheer and beatniks sneer Republicans drink beer and have no opinion As he serves his small dominion with a smile all the while   Asking no praise as he wages the fight In behalf of what’s right and against what is wrong To you he’s just a cop, but to me he’s Mr. Right   In his uniform he looks so fine A virile bull in thick blue wool Urchins grab him on the street pull at his sleeves and laugh at his enormity As honors no deformity but thinks us all manure – He is pure   But to me he’s Mr. Right   Sometimes he lets me handle his gun Or try on his badge or book cousin Madge Try to imagine how splendid I find him When those who maligned him get sent to the chair – They don’t care   Asking no praise as he wages the fight In behalf of what’s right and against what is wrong To you he’s just a cop, but to me he’s Mr. Right To you he’s just a cop, but to me he’s Mr. Right To you he’s just a cop, but to me he’s Mr. Right   ©1971 Glittermimp Music/Unart Music Corp. BMI Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     Tiger (music/words: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn) Tiger in the nite I see your cap is sinking low Your eyes a fuzzy light And the gash across your face they call a smile Is cracking at the edges, boy You’re running out of steam   Belly pulled up tight A boozer ‘til your dying day Ready for a fight And a ladykiller in your way But look out, pop, they’re tougher now And you know what I mean   Tiger come on home Your woman says she needs you You’re on the bum too long And the government won’t feed you   Take off your boots, your running days are over The lads are gone and the pubs are pushing clover All around you   You used to be the cleanest cat to walk a city mile Play it down, you’re getting old – you’re losing style The cops all said you surely was the toughest in your time Your legend’s made and anyway your pinball game’s sublime   Tiger in the nite I see your cap is sinking low Your eyes a fuzzy light And the gash across your face they call a smile Is cracking at the edges, boy You’re running out of steam   Tiger come on home Tiger come on home Tiger come on home Your woman says she needs you You’re on the bum too long And the government won’t feed you Take off your boots, your running days are over The lads are gone and the pubs are pushing clover All around   Tiger come on home Your woman says she needs you Your friends are dead and gone And the government won’t feed you Tiger come on home Your woman says she needs you, boy Your friends are dead and gone And the government won’t feed you anymore   ©1972 Glittermimp Music Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     The Locomotion (Goffin-King)   Free Little Eva!   I want to see all my brothers and all my sisters out here Do the loco-motion with me Where are you, brothers and sisters?  Come on! Do it to the left, do it to the right Do The Locomotion with all your might     Poor Baby (music/words: John Mendelsohn) I  clench my face as poor baby gives chase To painful recollections time can never erase As the city sleeps my poor baby weeps For the fly-by-night father I can never replace   Wanna see you laugh, wanna see you smile Wanna see you here with me   All I want to be in this life Is poor baby’s man To wake up beside her with my arm across her shoulder Every morning for the rest of my days   Now I perceive what poor baby believes That no man in the world can do more than deceive She self-disgusts and won’t give me her trust Now it’s getting hard pretending I don’t know I ought to leave   Didn’t want to go, didn’t want to hurt you But gotta save myself   All I want to be in this life Is poor baby’s man   ©1972 Glittermimp Music Reproduced by kind permission of John Mendelssohn     The Babyshoes Bittersuite (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   a.    Sad Songs That She Inspired   In her Vogue© cover legs and refrigerator smile She arrives to while my time away, To look indifferent as I play As I play sad songs that she inspired   Ringing with her dead bouquets and news of other men, We’ll play that song again today And then she’ll go her separate way Separate way -- saying in passing “please don’t forget me”   b.   Diminished   Hey, I used to make you in the sunshine Wrote the lyrics for the tunes that you made Gave you half of mine and never, ever asked for quarter Content to walk in your parade, if even at the end   Now it looks like my good fortune has diminished I saw you arm in arm with one that I’d called friend You are happy, he is happy, you two are happiest together Is there now reason to pretend that it’s otherwise?   c.    Kind Lady   I'm pledging my love…   When your line-up of celebrities Has unplugged all its cords And the Fords queue up as if on cue To whisk them back to dreamland I’ll still be here in my blue jeans Waiting out your last few scenes And wanting still to be your righteous man   Kind lady, pretty baby I’m astonished by my love for you Come over, bring your knitting And make my dreams come true   d.    Your Righteous Man   When the sequins lose their glitter And the ashtrays all are filled That which I willed will come to pass Our changes hence permitting The documents shall all be signed You’ll look in your scrapbook And there you’ll find Me waiting there to be your righteous man   ©1972 Glittermimp Music Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     Smart Alex (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   In Hong Kong I was shanghaied into sci-fi westerns Typecast as the moon’s fastest draw I’d appear across the dunes like a late-movie Arab, And, armed with harpoons, stalk the redmen who’d scalped my co-pilot   A posse was formed to beef up my image A priest was alerted as well After smoking at least twenty six-packs per picture My tonsils increased in importance if not in the fan mags   I knew that I was destined to die in the outback My agent stopped taking my calls I looked my gift horsefly direct in the mouthpiece And discovered – alas! – that the message had been prerecorded   So I traded my Rolls for “The Best of Bo Diddley” And got into Jean Shrimpton drag Awash in a deluge of ‘sixties nostalgia My tongue became tied, save for, “Far heavy out, man, hey dig it!”   ©1972 Glittermimp Music Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     A Second Hand Viola (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   I grew up in the basement of a workingman’s saloon My mother was the mistress of a famous gangland goon My sisters worked the graveyard shift And my papa died too soon My only friend was a second hand viola   I was spat on, cursed, and ridiculed By mama’s mobster beau ‘Til I listened to my instincts and laid the bugger low With a right hook just like Dempsey’s That I didn’t want to throw For fear they’d take my second hand viola   The public cried “electric chair!” But the judge said “ten to life” My cellmate said “yer pretty, son” – to him, I was like wife Persuasive were his tender words But more so was the knife With which he slashed the strings of my second hand viola   I hobbled back into the world Wrinkled flesh and brittle bone Speaking only with faint gestures now, unable but to moan Forgotten in a dark hotel I’ll spend my last few nights alone Dreaming of a second hand viola   If I must live on your terms If I can’t live on my own terms I won’t want to live life at all   ©1972 Glittermimp Music Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     The Tough Kids (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   When I was a boy I was fat and homely And real easily embarrassed The tough kids made it rough They made fun and everyone laughed along With all the tough kids   All the A’s that I got didn’t make me safer There was no way to escape them The tough kids were always near They’d appear to laugh and jeer, jeer and laugh And after they finished, I’d go home crying   The tough kids poured sand in my lunchbox And tied my gym clothes into big knots They’d appointed themselves to make childhood hell For all of us homelies and have-nots   Every dance of my teens was the same old story I would wind up playing caroms So fast my head would spin The tough kids would butt in, and I’d have been In lots of trouble if I had argued   (Then we grew up)   And the tough kids got grabbed by the army Or filled up ditch-digging positions While we timid and weak, who they’d never let speak Became surgeons, kings, and magicians   A-ha!   ©1972 Glittermimp Music Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     In Search of R. Crumb (music: Ralph Oswald/words: John Mendelsohn)   (Why don’t you see if there’s anything good on? Why bother?)   I was sitting in my wheelchair Trying in vain to hide the fear That all that lay ahead for me Was football games and beer   The wife was in the kitchen slicing up a loaf of SPAM® When I tuned my trembling heartstrings And lit out for the frontier Singing softly “R. Crumb will show me the way”   How will I know him once I have found him Will it amaze him – will it confound him That I crossed oceans, mountains, and deserts Only to bask in his light?   All decked out like Flakey Foont I searched for Robert Crumb Among the wise and simple The eloquent and dumb   Unhip, blasé, and sodden – all those sinful things I’d been But what I’ve been counts for so little Compared to what I’ve become Ooh, enlightened – R. Crumb has shown me the way   I was a lost soul, a geek, and a zero ‘Til I reclined at the feet of my hero R. Crumb’s rap moved me, grooved and behooved me Truck on ‘til you can truck no more   ©1972 Glittermimp Music Reproduced by kind permission of Ralph Oswald & John Mendelssohn     Dynamite (music/words: John Mendelsohn)   I’m fed up with never scoring And having nowhere much to go Lots of people think I’m boring All those Bozos I will show   I’ll be so hip that they’ll flip out when I pass I’ll be a gas, I’ll be fantastic Dynamite is what they’ll call me   I will shine them on in sequins I’ll be tall in platform shoes With hair exactly like Rod Stewart’s My presence will be front page news   The girls will scream, the boys will dream of when they too Can do the things of which I’ll sing In a sexy English accent   But I’ll remain nice Or try, heaven knows I’ll let all my fans touch My dynamite toes   And I’ll pose if they bring cameras All the kids are singing “Dynamite’s the dude we’re digging Dynamite is farther out Than we thought a person could be” I’m their main man, there’s no doubt   Dynamite! Dynamite! Dynamite! Dynamite!   ©1972 Glittermimp Music Reproduced by kind permission of John Mendelssohn