Decomposing Composers

Lyrics for Decomposing Composers

Beethoven's gone, but his music lives on And Mozart don't go shopping no more You'll never meet Liszt or Brahms again And Elgar doesn't answer the door Schubert and Chopin used to chuckle and laugh Whilst composing a long symphony But one hundred and fifty years later There's very little of them left to see The decomposing composers There's nothing much anyone can do You can still hear Beethoven But Beethoven cannot hear you Handel and Haydn and Rachmaninoff Enjoyed a nice drink with their meal But nowadays no one will serve them And the gravy is left to congeal Verdi and Wagner delighted the crowds With a highly original sound The pianos they played are still working But they're both six feet underground The decomposing composers There's less of them every year You can say what you like to Debussy But there's not much of him left to hear Claude Achile Debussy, died 1918 Christoph Willibald Gluck, died 1787 Carl Maria von Weber, not at all well, 1825; died 1826 Giacomo Meyerbeer, still alive 1863; not still alive 1864 Modest Mussorgsky, 1880 going to parties; no fun anymore, 1881 Johann Nepomuk Hummel, chattin' away 19 and a dozen with his mates down at the pub every evening 1836; 1837, nothing