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Song Parodies -> "Bye Bye Little Chevy of Mine (v.2)"

Original Song Title:

"American Pie"

 (MP3)
Original Performer:

Don McLean

Parody Song Title:

"Bye Bye Little Chevy of Mine (v.2)"

Parody Written by:

wannabemustangjockey

The Lyrics

Yes, this is essentially the same song as my old version. But I realized that part of the song had been left out, so I have added that, as well as tweaked other smaller parts to hopefully make them better.
So, the story: this is about the aftermath of the 1973 Arab oil embargo and its affects on the muscle-car-loving U.S.
A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How those V-8s used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those pistons dance
And that would keep me happy for a while!

The muscle cars could make you shiver
As they blast past your parents' flivver.
Gas supplies seemed endless;
The Shah was hardly friendless.

But then one day in '73
The papers cried catastrophe
That fateful day was (I could see):
The day horsepower died.

So bye-bye, little Chevy of mine
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

Did you see what happened then,
When the Shah got kicked out of Iran?
Jimmy Carter told you why.
Well, did you believe it was all a lie?
That the Middle East thought we'd die
If they just starved us of our oil sup-ply?

Well, I'm sure that they just wanted cash
'Cause you saw the prices quickly crash
It took a couple years,
But it didn't quell the fears...

I got a brand-new Mazda pickup truck
Though I thought the four-banger in it sucked
But hey man, I was out of luck
The day horsepower died.

I started thinking,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

Now it's thirty years since the GTO
Which, by its death, was "The Judge" no more
But that's not how it used to be...
The Camaro SS was king of the track,
With the Charger Hemi 440 Six Pak.
AMC ... had the Rebel Machine...

Oh, but while our folks were looking down,
Insurgents usurped the Shah's crown
The White House was disturbed;
Car buyers were perturbed.
And while Honda Civics sold like mad
Those muscle cars had it so bad
And we all moaned that we'd been had
The day horsepower died.

We were singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

Smaller Impalas had never been made
And could no longer make the grade;
So big cars like it were re-placed...
By gutless little crap com-pacts
That couldn't burn out even on wet grass
And the imports, (no surprise here) kicked our ass.

Now the evening news said it was OK
Just buy a small car right away.
The Ford Pin-to was new,
But get rear-ended and you're screwed!
The U.S. tried to level the field
Because OPEC refused to yield
Do you recall was was revealed
The day horsepower died?

We started singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

Oh, and there we were all in one place,
What happened to "Grace, Pace, and Space"?
With no gas left to burn, it seemed.
Come off it, ricing your little Civic
With its inline-four and a five-speed stick
'Cause you think it's cool to hear that thing scream.

Oh, and as I watched you on the street
You thought that car was really neat.
You thought it was pure sex...
Dude! It's just a Civic EX!
And, as you raced a Camaro
I thought I saw your engine blow
But how you beat him, I don't know
The day horsepower died.

You were singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

A girl bought a Mustang new;
Except it was a Mustang II
And I just grimaced and turned away.
I went down to the GM store
Where I'd seen the Malibu years before...
Now they're front-drive, V-6 powered, white or gray.
And in the streets were SUVs;
Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys.
Half of them were champagne,
The rest were all just plain beige.
And the three cars I admire most,
The Mustang, Vette, and Camaro,
All were detuned and became slow
The day horsepower died.

And we were singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time
This is such a waste of my time.

We were singing,
Bye-bye, little Chevy of mine.
And the Mustangs all sat rusting
'Cause the pumps had gone dry
And people sat all day in gasoline lines
Saying, this is such a waste of my time.
(c) 2005 The Wannabe Mustang Jockey -- wannabemustangjockey@hotmail.com

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Original Song: 
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Voting Results

 
Pacing: 4.9
How Funny: 4.7
Overall Rating: 4.9

Total Votes: 21

Voting Breakdown

The following represent how many people voted for each category.

    Pacing How Funny Overall Rating
 1   0
 0
 0
 
 2   0
 0
 0
 
 3   1
 2
 1
 
 4   1
 2
 1
 
 5   19
 17
 19
 

User Comments

Comments are subject to review, and can be removed by the administration of the site at any time and for any reason.

Syncronos - September 30, 2005 - Report this comment
*applauds* This is BRILLIANT!
stuart mcarthur - September 30, 2005 - Report this comment
huuuuuge effort, and great detail - pacing was good too - big 555 here
John Barry - September 30, 2005 - Report this comment
Brilliant the way you've cut back and forth between world events of the time and the catalog of cars! 555 octane!
Red Ant - September 30, 2005 - Report this comment
Again, excellent, and the Sept SOTM entry thread is now up.
M!KEY - October 08, 2005 - Report this comment
3 Cheers. Well done.
Agrimorfee - October 10, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) You certainly know your cars--I don't---but you made it interesting and clever. Nice job!
Adagio - October 10, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) Very good.
Spaff.com - October 11, 2005 - Report this comment
A wise cliche master once said, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Freaking Arabs. Don't they know that their selfishness with their most prized natural resource (i.e., their ONLY natural resource) is cramping our style?! We have cars to drive, dammit!

This original song is a bugger of a job to parody. (Remind me never to do it.) You have pumped it full of lotsa great lines. I particularly like "Dude! It's just a Civic EX!" and how you worked in "grace, pace, and space." This whole thing reminds me of those "Odd Rods" stickers. (In a good way.) Remember those?
Peter Andersson a.k.a K1chyd - October 16, 2005 - Report this comment
SOTM - Here's a bit of trivia to add to your frustration. When the OPEC finally got into agreement that their members/countries should be allowed to produce in concordance with their "resources" it took only a couple of weeks for those "resources" to approximately double up according to statistics, not based on new geological findings, only based on the middle east governemental statistics that were/became the basis for what they were allowed to pump up. Or to make a long story short, since the official statistical science in that area is no more reliable today there are reasons to believe that all approximations on how much oil there is left to bring up is optimistic as best, criminally exaggerated at worst.
wannabemustangjockey - October 16, 2005 - Report this comment
Spaff.com, I'm 17 (pauses for effect). So no, I don't remember the Odd Rods stickers. But thanks for stopping by! Same to everyone else who commented!
Kristof Robertson - October 17, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) You're 17?? I'm stunned..this is mature and clever writing for one so young. Methinks another vchild prodigy in the making. 555
Stuart McArthur - October 20, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) You had me the first time with this one, and all the work youput into it, but being 17 years old ramps up the plaudits to another level - great stuff
wannabemustangjockey - October 20, 2005 - Report this comment
Heh, sorry to have played the age card...but we all get desperate sometimes...
Your Worst Nightmare - October 22, 2005 - Report this comment
SOTM - Great pacing and effort, but unfortunately, I do not know of this 1973 catastrophe you speak of.
wannabemustangjockey - October 23, 2005 - Report this comment
You've never heard of the 1973 Arab oil embargo? I'm curious....do you live outside the U.S.?
Your Worst Nightmare - October 24, 2005 - Report this comment
I live in Alabama.... I've heard of long gas lines in the seventies, but I didn't really study it. I'm fourteen, by the way.
Red Ant - October 24, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) See above. Many excellent lines in here mustangjockey, particularly the "By gutless little crap com-pacts
That couldn't burn out even on wet grass", and
"You thought it was pure sex...
Dude! It's just a Civic EX!
(which is applicable to my next door neighbor).

Anyways, great job on a tough OS.
Rick C - October 26, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) Excellent parody. As others have pointed out, lots of great lines. 555
Jake A Ralphing (Luke Brattoni) - October 27, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) You used the original lyrics to good effect, nice theme and well crafted indeed. I would suggest changing the chorus each time, though, as in songs such as this they get a tad repetitive.
You're 17, huh?
*threatened-by-younger-member-of-pack hormone triggered*
...'rusting' doesn't rhyme with 'Mustang', you know.
Larry Hensley - October 28, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) Good one. I've heard about this before, and this was a very well written parody about it.
wannabemustangjockey - October 28, 2005 - Report this comment
Who says 'Mustang' doesn't rhyme with 'rusting'? It does now! Besides, how many rhymes are there for 'Mustang' and 'rusting' anyway? Put them together and you get my namesake, the 'Rustang', which is the reason why I'm still a wannabe Mustang jockey.
Phil Alexander - October 28, 2005 - Report this comment
I love the "mustang"/"rustang" rhyme - it's all in how you sing it (after all, in my recent one to the same OS, I rhymed "duped" with "stupid"). A bit like the "GTO"/"No mo'" sort of rhyme. This is excellent.
Johnny D - October 28, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) Yeah, what Philbo said about the rhymes --- great job on a long & challenging song.
Claude Prez - October 29, 2005 - Report this comment
Wow. 17, huh? I was impressed before I found that out. I get my car worked on, they ask me the year, the make, the model, I usually have to go look it up. Seriously. But a very good job here, though I'll ditto what Luke said about varying the chorus (although Weird Al didn't when he did this one). Either way, very good.
Arwen - October 30, 2005 - Report this comment
SOTM...so, basically I saw that this was about cars...and trolled through it waiting for some Fast and the Furious shout out...but it never came. Dammit. ; )

Kidding of course...this was nicely written...I liked it. (but for the record, you can NEVER go wrong by saying how hot Vin Diesel is in any given parody. It's done wonders for me...; )...)
Tim Mayfield - October 31, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) Civic?? Civic?? It's got like 200 hp, what about the Pontiac GTO? 400 hp!! Ticket magnet!
2nz - October 31, 2005 - Report this comment
Better than the original. Glad to see this getting some well-deserved looks. My favorites are still 'sex/Civic EX', 'Mustang new/Mustang II'. Good auto show, I say.
MysteryGoat - November 01, 2005 - Report this comment
(SOTM) Not a car guy myself, but that didn't keep me from enjoying it. Great song!
wannabemustangjockey - November 01, 2005 - Report this comment
Arwen, about saying that Vin Diesel is hot, you can do that. But I'm a guy... Tim, not too long ago a stock Civic made about 130hp. And the GTO's not much more than the equivalent of a Grand Prix coupe with a V-8. Everyone, About the cars mentioned in this song, it was mostly supposed to be from the point of view of someone remembering what happened during the '70s and '80s -- which, as you now know, was a time I don't remember because of the minor technicality of it having happened before I was born. Yes, cars are getting faster and better now, but many are still not as "cool" as a classic muscle car. Ask any high-school student. Like me.

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