Kill 'em by Parnell Hall

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Introduction: By toastmaster Bill Crider:

"We were trying to think of some really stupendous and fantastic way to close this banquet, but, as I told you, the magician from Minneapolis was booked. However, we came up with something even better. Many of you, who were fortunate enough to be in Omaha have already heard this wonderful tune. Others of you have heard about it. Some of you have read the words in various publications. But, in spite of many requests, we are going to have Parnell Hall sing this song anyway. This is the by now famous murder mystery song, performed and accompanied by Parnell Hall."

Parnell:

"Thank you very much. I owe you at least an explanation, if not an apology, before I begin. I am basically a paranoid schizophrenic by nature, and when I sang in Omaha, nearly had a nervous breakdown because I had to get up and sing in front of two hundred and fifty people."

Len Moffat:

"There's only five hundred and twenty four here."

Parnell:

"I am risking years of therapy here. When I sang in Omaha, I began by telling them that I had not sang in public in over ten years, and when they heard me they'd know why. This is of course no longer true. Don't get me wrong--you'll know why. It's just I've now sung once in the last ten years, that night in Omaha. In the audience that night were the Moffats, a perfectly nice, but obviously tone-deaf couple...who invited me here tonight. So what you are about to hear is at least partly their fault."

Len Moffat: (referring to the microphone) "She turned the sound up, you don't have to be on top of it."

Parnell: "Huh?" Len Moffat: "She turned the sound up, you don't have to be on top of it."

Parnell: "I don't have to be on top of it, the sound is....Can you hear me here? (bending over to the microphone) I can sing like this. It's probably fitting, considering what I'm about to do. As you may have gathered, this will not be pretty. The song I have written is rather complex. It would be difficult even for a competent singer, which is our case, we have not got. So this may require a certain amount of stopping and starting, going back over certain verses, trying things again, leaving the stage, or fainting dead away. Should that happen, just ignore it. I will resume the song as quickly as medical science allows. So, please bear with me as I stumble through these verses, and I will be back with more disclaimers right after the song.

If you want to write a mystery
Be it hard boiled or a cozy
About a young man with a gun
Or an old woman that's nosy

You gotta kill somebody
You just have to, and that's
Whether your hero is some macho dick
Or a little old lady with cats

You've got to
Grab 'em, nab 'em
Slash 'em, stab 'em
Take 'em to the morgue and slab 'em.
Strangle 'em and mangle 'em
And hit 'em on the head.

You've got to
Slice 'em, dice 'em
Oh how nice
And poke their eyes out once or twice
And slip 'em a dose of arsenic
And make sure that they're dead.

"See what I mean. I normal person would have written a song he could sing, not some ridiculous tongue twister. This is type of song after each verse you kind of circle the wagons and assess the damages. Can you hear the guitar, for instance? (shouts of "no") I didn't think so. When I sang in Omaha they forgot to turn on the microphone, no one heard the guitar either. This led to certain comments, none of them particularly kind, ranging from your simple rude remark, all the way to metaphysical speculation as to whether I was performing with one microphone too few, or one too many. Though no one heard it, I was actually playing an eleven string guitar at the time, the high G being broken, and this did not pass unnoticed. The mystery writers at the banquet were entertained by Parnell Hall, who performed without a G string. Try explaining that to your mother. But I digress. Yes, I'm stalling. If you had to sing this song with my voice, you'd be stalling too. I'm going to go back, do that last verse again to kind of get a running start and get back into it, so if you know the words by now, feel free to join in."

You've got to
Grab 'em, nab 'em
Slash 'em, stab 'em
Take 'em to the morgue and slab 'em.
Strangle 'em and mangle 'em
And hit 'em on the head.

You've got to
Slice 'em, dice 'em
Oh how nice
And poke their eyes out once or twice
And slip 'em a dose of arsenic
And make sure that they're dead.

Oh no, you say, I couldn't do that
I wouldn't hurt a fly
But if you want to write a mystery
Someone had better die

And if you want the book to sell
You better make it gruesome
If there isn't that much blood
You'd better kill a twosome

"Hang onto your hats, here we go again."

You've got to
Snag 'em bag em
Tie and gag 'em
Hitch 'em to a car and drag 'em
Or shoot 'em with the arrow poison
Of a South American tribe

You've got to
Shoot 'em with a blowgun dart
Or stab 'em gently in the heart
Just be careful to make sure that
All the details jibe.

"If you're keeping score, we're about halfway home."

And if you do it right
And your agent sells the book
You heave a huge sigh of relief
That you are off the hook.
But
Before the contract's even signed
The editor calls you
"We want a series character,
Please start on number 2."

Oh, no.

You've got to
Bash 'em, mash 'em
Really smash 'em
Put 'em in a car and crash 'em.
You can make it happen if you
Tamper with the brakes.

You've got to
Strangle 'em with piano wire
Or burn 'em up in a hotel fire
Or let 'em perish naturally
In floods or in earthquakes

And now you're on the 14th book
Ideas are wearing thin
You need a little help to get
Out of the fix you're in

It gets harder and harder
To come up with something new
You need new ways of killing
And new murder victims too

Hmmm.

You've got to
Kill the kids
And dad and mommie
Grind 'em up for hard salami
Butcher 'em and skewer 'em
And roast 'em on a spit.

You've got to
Pan fry 'em and
Then par boil 'em
Shake and bake
And boil in oil 'em
Put 'em through a CuisenArt
Until they taste like very bad hamburger.

(Yeah, I know.
It doesn't rhyme
And it doesn't scan.
Unfortunately,
That portion of the song
Was improved on
By a copy editor.)

You've got to
Whop 'em, bop 'em
You can stop 'em
Line 'em in your sights and pop 'em
Burn 'em, drown 'em, poison 'em
And shoot 'em in the head.

You've got to
Smash their head under a rock
Or give 'em an electric shock
Or blow 'em up with dynamite
And make sure that they're dead.
And make sure that they're dead.