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Hogwarts El Paso

from Arrivederci 2020 by Tom Smith

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about

This is one of the songs written for the abortive attempt at a 2018 24 Hour Comic Book Day album. Kathleen Quigley's suggestions were "Harry Potter", "fan fiction", and country-Western. I actually wrote two different songs, the first to an original tune, but I like this better. The music, of course, is the classic "El Paso" by Marty Robbins.

lyrics

Out in the cold Scottish castle of Hogwarts,
I fell in love with a Gryffindor girl.
Nighttime would find me in Rosemerta’s tavern,
Butterbeer flowed until Ginny would hurl.

Greener than green were the eyes of young Potter,
Everyone mentions them ten times per tale,
Ron eats a lot and Hermione’s bushy,
Hagrid is stupid and Malfoy is pale.

Every cliche you can think of is here,
Oh, look, it’s Severus Snape,
Greasy and sneering and dour and obnoxious,
And Batman wishes he wore such a cape.

Here’s next chapter --
Now Harry and Draco are secretly lovers,
So are McGonagall and Argus Filch.
Ron and Hermione fight and then make up,
Does Dobby get laid? Nope, nada, zip, zilch.

Transformers, Avengers, or My Little Pony,
Writers of fanfic somehow make it work,
Two hundred thousand word mashups with X-Men,
Harry’s Patronus looks like Captain Kirk.

So many versions of how goblins act,
And ways to be late for class,
Theories of time travel, how to kill horcruxes,
But Bane the centaur is always an ass.

And we’re told how
Cornelius Fudge is admired by Umbridge,
There goes a pairing I could do without.
The Goblet of Fire exists for one reason,
Taking your tickets then spitting one out.

Snape is a bad guy, no, good guy, no, bad guy,
Lockhart is always a fool,
Men can get pregnant and harems are common,
I was told this is a junior high school.

Not accredited --
I have read fanfic for over a decade,
And I have seen every trope in the game.
Dumbledore’s evil or noble or crazy,
Death Eaters, Stormtroopers, one and the same,

Out here in the west Texas town of El Paso,
I fell in love with the Potterverse fics,
But as I ride with my hands on my tablet,
I’ve got no signal -- that’s life in the sticks.

credits

from Arrivederci 2020, released August 28, 2021
Music: "El Paso" by Marty Robbins

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Tom Smith Ann Arbor

Weird Al with more books, JoCo with more jokes, Carlin with more Cthulhu. Since 1985, Tom Smith has been breaking hearts, minds, and laws of propriety and physics with his insane blend of sf/fantasy, Life With Computers, pop culture, politics, and puns. More than twenty albums later, he maintains the best is yet to come. ... more

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