Brainy Beast

Some memories from a mis-spent youth are perhaps relevant given the current state of affairs. A song writer and performer, Jeremy Taylor came up with this ditty which is a fun one. So here we go with the story and lyrics below.

Everybody in South Africa (and some from further afield) know Jeremy Taylor’s ‘Ag Pleez Deddy’, but it is only an older generation and ardent fans that know some of his other songs. One of his other funny songs is ‘Transplant Calypso’ which is dedicated to Dr Christiaan Barnard and “his particular brand of medical satire” as Jeremy says in the introduction to the live version of the song. It was written around the time that Dr Barnard was pioneering the art of the heart transplant where he“takes hearts out of people who are nearly dead/Puts them into other people who are also nearly dead/With the result that they both die”. Jeremy goes on to say that Barnard is “A man after my own heart”. All this by way of intro which he delivers with a stand up comics timing, before he launches into his song about a being made up of animal parts after seeing his doc and getting various tansplants. The punch line arrives when he moans to his doc that he doesn’t want anything from an animal. The doctor offers him another organ “I looked at this thing with dismay and suspicion/It was the brain of a politician” and he opts to go for the animal parts instead. Taylor wrote brilliant satirical songs and ‘Transplant Calypso’ was him at his biting best. Yes, medicine has moved on drastically since those transplant days and the subject matter is somewhat outdated, but it is still darn funny and all sung in Taylor’s wry smile voice. Look beyond the popcorn and bubblegum and you’ll see that when it came to hysterical South African satire Jeremy Taylor was the deddy. “During the late sixties I took part in a weekly television show for Granada TV in the north of England. There were four of us in the cast, and we would ride up from London on the breakfast train, studying the morning’s papers over porridge and kippers, and by the time we got to the studios around ten o’clock we had each selected various news items for comment. In my case that meant writing a song, or a monologue, or some sort of sketch. I also created a character called Loony Len who would recite misty-eyed and unintelligible Scottish poetry at the drop of a haggis.

It was on one of these early-morning train rides that I read of Dr Christian Barnard’s first heart transplant operation. The tabloids and the medical profession waxed ecstatic. The fact that both the donor and the recipient came off rather badly from the whole experience seemed to escape people’s notice. The point was that man, and science, were proving once again that you can’t stop “progress”, and that man’s mastery of the laws of nature had taken another giant step forward”.

Transplant Calypso The other day I was feeling ill I went to the doctor to get some pill he looked at me in despair, said my friend you’re badly in need of repair now with this up-to date surgery we get our spare parts from the menagerie so if you’ll kindly sit down a while I’ll just telephone for a crocodile I got the heart of an ape the liver of a chicken the blood of an ox through a tube which they stick in to me spleen which I borrowed from a cow I was human once but I’m not sure now. Walking down the street me girlfriend I happen to meet me heart went bom-diddy-bom just like the ape that I got it from me ox blood boiled, I started to moo I was pawing at the ground, what else could I do? and when at last she walked on by I said cockadoodle-doo and started to fly Help me! I got the heart of an ape… Going out one night me and a feller got into a fight I hit him with a left then I hit him with a right but somehow I just couldn’t finish the fight no matter what I did he kept coming at me he was the stubbornest man I ever did see it was in vain, I find out last this feller’s got the jawbone of an ass and me I got the heart of an ape… Well in the end I was getting fed up I said to this doctor, look man, I’ve had enough All this animal junk won’t do Get me some organ that doesn’t come out of the zoo He said, what about this for size? I tell you, I could hardly believe me eyes I looked at this thing with dismay & suspicion It was the brain of a politician.

I’d rather have The heart of an ape…