Grandmother's Song

Steve Martin taught us to sing this in 1977.

[Thank you. You know folks, when I was a kid, I was pretty close to my grandmother and she used to sing a song to me when I was about this high. It always meant something to me and I'd like to do it for you right now because it does have meaning in today's world even . . . all these years, you know those, even during the "hip drug days" you know when everybody was supposed to be so cool and everything had double meanings and this little simple tune would keep coming back to me and I think it kinda guided me through those years and I'd like to do this song for you right now, I think it might have a little meaning for you, so here it goes.]

Be courteous kind and forgiving
Be gentle and peaceful each day
Be warm and human and grateful
And have a good thing to say

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike
Be witty and happy and wise
Be honest and love all your neighbors
Be obsequious purple and clairvoyant

Be pompous obese and eat cactus
Be dull and boring and omnipresent
Criticize things you don't know about
Be oblong and have your knees removed

Be tasteless rude and offensive
Live in a swamp and be three dimensional
Put a live chicken in your underwear
Get all excited and go to a yawning festival

[O.K. everybody!]

Be courteous kind and forgiving
Be gentle and peaceful each day
Be warm and human and grateful
And have a good thing to say

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike
[OK everybody on this]
Be witty and happy and wise
Be honest and love all your neighbors
Be obsequious purple and clairvoyant
[Let 'em hear you outside]

Be pompous obese and eat cactus
[Everybody sing]
Be dull and boring and omnipresent
Criticize things you don't know about
Be oblong and have your knees removed

[Ladies only]
Be tasteless rude and offensive
[Now the men]
Live in a swamp and be three dimensional
[Everybody]
Put a live chicken in your underwear
Go into a closet and suck eggs

[You guys are going to be on a record. Maybe. Someday. Not mine, of course.]