Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

So I was sitting here, toying with this week’s Six Sentence Story and trying to find my mojo to continue with my editing of ‘Almira’ when I noticed an old Friend of the Doctrine, Stephanie Sprenger* She’d written a post about whatever coffeepot catastrophe was ravaging the culture shorelines on the Facebook and I thought to myself, I thought, ‘Hey! Didn’t we do a post on that song?”

Turns out it was a different song. Mine was weird, while, I gather, this one is popular. Par for the course, non?

Anyway, I went and dug it up and here it is from, like 2009 or something.

‘Later on, we’ll conspire, As we dream by the fire. To face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made…’ -the Wakefield Doctrine-

December 6, 2009

…I’ll bet you thought that ‘Winter Wonderland’ (music by Felix Bernard, and lyrics by Richard Smith) was just some old 40’s, ‘girls like this song’ kind of Xmas carole, now didn’t you?

As readers know by now, unlike our talented but under-producing Progenitor roger, when it comes to writing these Posts I have a certain set of conditions that I find essential in order to get the words to appear.  First and foremost is a subtitle that I ‘get something from’; a vibe, a laugh, could be anything but it (the subtitle) must make me stop and “Yeah, I like that!”. Once I have that, and hopefully the germ of a topic, the rest is grinding out the words.  Write and re-write.
And when it comes to sub-titles, I definitely have a soft spot for song lyrics. (Downspring Glenn and I were discussing this idea just last night.  We both agreed that any song that you remember, has an emotional charge. Good/bad, weak/strong, not mattering, it will always have something that gives you a little kick when you run the song through your head.  Something to do with music itself having  an affinity for emotional content.  Simply put, song lyrics are hard to disregard).
Which brings us to the current Post’s subtitle.
(Now, some of my musical references have been ‘constructively criticized’ as being limited by my age/taste (in music), and to the person who offered this constructive criticism (I channel Samuel Jackson to say ” I hope you die and burn in Hell”.)
Yesterday morning I heard the Doctrine calling (‘…clark….time for another post…’). OK, not the worse thing to have to do.  At just about this time the weather forecast impinged on my consciousness with something about snow later.  All of a sudden the phrase ‘sleigh bells ring, can’t you (something something) them’ gets in my head.  And the music of course, the damn catchy music.

So, on to google and a quick search turned up the whole story, name of song, lyrics a damn mp3.  I played a brief clip of the song and that starts the mindworm, and its like, ‘goddamn! lets write this thing so I can play some music I like and get the tune out of my head’.
So I scan the lyrics for the part about ‘the sleighbells’ and the line “Later on we’ll conspire” jumps out on the screen, and goes for my head, like one of those semi- chimpanzees that they use on TV shows (when the Producer wants ‘cute’ and but doesn’t want the risk that one of the actors might get their faces bitten off by the anthropomorphically bad tempered real chimps.)

(Then I read all of the lyrics. …. What have we here?)

This, (classic, hear it every damn Christmas, included in every Xmas music CD compilation set that Time-Warner or whoever else sells this shit to people on cable TV) song, ‘Winter Wonderland’ has very much got my attention.

The lyrics! Jesus Christ, the lyrics! (I am liking this Richard Smith guy, get weird much, Richard?) (lol)

(And just so you can have the damn song stuck in your head for a week, a link to a video of Winter Wonderland below. )

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We’re happy tonight.
Walking in a winter wonderland. (ok nothing strange, it is a fairly attractive image, sort of what we remember about the song.)

Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland. (still safe, expanding the imagery including local fauna in order to stress seasonal climate changes, safe, safe.)

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown (?)

He’ll say: Are you married? (Who do you mean and who the fuck is Parson Brown?)
We’ll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you’re in town. (!? The ground is beginning to feel decidedly spongy…)

Later on, we’ll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that we’ve made, (Yes! The plans! tell about the Plans, George…)
Walking in a winter wonderland.

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
And pretend that he’s a circus clown (No, there is absolutely nothing funny/charming/cute about a circus clown made of snow, standing alone, not moving…yet)
We’ll have lots of fun with mister snowman,
Until the other kids knock him down. (Other kids? How old is this person, I mean he is talking about marriage for Christs sake!)

When it snows, ain’t it thrilling,
Though your nose gets a chilling
We’ll frolic and play, the Eskimo way, (Yeah eat still warm animal flesh, kiss with our noses and give birth on an ice flo. Merry Christmas you weird-ass singing 27 going on 13 year old)
Walking in a winter wonderland.

* not ‘old’ old….old as in ‘of longstanding status, significant tenure, aka ‘from way back in the day’. Stephanie was one of the original hostinae of the Finish the Sentence Friday, back when, fresh on the virtual scene, towards bloghops I did slouch’.

Who said, ‘Well, you certainly have come a long way in your writing!?’**

** “Mr. Rumple! if you and your cohort, Miss Toombs can drag your noses out of your Mad Magazines and share your witticism from up here in front of the class...”