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Song Parodies -> "Volatility"

Original Song Title:

"Personality"

 (MP3)
Original Performer:

Johnny Mercer

Parody Song Title:

"Volatility"

Parody Written by:

Jeff Stambo

The Lyrics

Jimmy van Heusen (real name: Edward Chester Babcock) has always been my favorite non-Broadway composer. (Van Heusen's late-night escapades around Vegas and the California desert are legendary. Sammy Cahn once quipped that Sinatra wanted to be van Heusen, but he couldn't pass the physical.) Personality, co-written by van Heusen and lyricist/poet Johnny Burke, and introduced by Dorothy Lamour in one of the Hope/Crosby Road movies, proved a perfect vehicle for this parody. I recorded it in 1998 at the request of the then-fiancee of investment/derivatives guru Myron Scholes, who had been a professor of finance at the University of Chicago before he learned that Wall Street would actually pay him for being smart. If I remember correctly, her name was Francine. She'd seen an article about me in the New York Times in which I'd mentioned that I had recently written a song about the Black/Scholes option pricing model. I'm guessing it was probably the first song ever written about the Black/Scholes option pricing model, and I'm not expecting Britney to try copy-catting any time soon. Anyhow, Francine thought the song would make a nice wedding gift for a guy who had everything, including her. She asked me how much I'd want to record the song, and I threw out 0 as a number. She immediately agreed, and when I hung up the phone and told my wife what transpired, she said, "Are you nuts? You could have just as easily said five thousand and she wouldn't have batted an eyelash!" A few months later Scholes' hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management, blew up in public view, but I'd bet he and Francine are still doing more than a bit of OK. I've posted my original performance at my HillarySong site (www.hillarysong.blogspot.com). Link is below.
(verse)
Wolfgang Mozart made music in Vienna
Shakespeare wrote at his English country home
Aristotle and Plato, Pythagoras and Cato
Thought big thoughts in old Greece and Rome

But you’ll find the great minds of modern days
Where folks get MBA’s

(chorus 1 and 2)

Here’s to a pair of guys
Who won the Nobel Prize
For coming up with this useful decree
An option’s price depends on
Volatility

Now not a trader lives
Who trades derivatives
And can’t with just his old trusty HP
Make money once he’s found that
Volatility

(bridge)

And how do farmers’ wives in the middle west
When getting dressed afford the best
Of all the Paris coutures
Futures!

(chorus 3)

So in your rosaries
Thank all those PhD’s
Who help us neutralize risk constantly
The guys who can determine
Volatility

(2nd bridge)

You’ll be makin’ dough without any pause
And never breaking any laws
Just learn to price a call right
All right!

(final chorus)

And that’s why Myron Scholes
Gets chauffeured in a rolls
And Bobby Merton ain’t hurtin’, cherie‘
Cause they know how to use that
Volatility
Listen to Volatility at Volatility

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Voting Results

 
Pacing: 4.4
How Funny: 4.4
Overall Rating: 4.4

Total Votes: 7

Voting Breakdown

The following represent how many people voted for each category.

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User Comments

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Dude! - June 02, 2007 - Report this comment
Free market parodies? Who'd've thought?
AFW - June 02, 2007 - Report this comment
Great introductory tale, as well as a very fine parody..written with sophistication and right-on rhymes...always liked this old classic, and have rattled around a few titles for it, myself...
John Jenkins - June 03, 2007 - Report this comment
The lyrics and the recording are both excellent. The coutures/futures couplet was my fave.
alvin - June 04, 2007 - Report this comment
great reworking...i'm a big fan of jimmy's too...even visited his grave...its near frank's

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