Once Upon A Time

Lyrics

Once upon a time
Way back a long time ago,
When the universe consisted of nothing more elaborate than
Mark Bolman

Oh, thank you Frank! And don't misspell it:
That's not Marc Bolan, that's Mark Volman
Hiya friends!
I wanna welcome each and everyone of you
I wanna say to you tonight, I feel great!
I mean, I feel great!
Everywhere I go people are always comin' up to me
And they say: "Mark, Mark, Mark... Mark are you kiddin'?"
Lemme tell you this friends: I am not kiddin'!
I mean, I am portly and I am maroon
Well, how many people here tonight can guess what I am?

Aaaah
I can't guess what you are

Well, then I'll give you some clues
And the first clue is: I am portly
Does that help?

Not much
No, I don't know who you are

Okay, I got one
Clue number two: I am double knit
Does that help?

No, not much
Whaddya mean?

Well, then I've to give you one more clue
I know this is gonna give it away
And I hate like damn to tell you this
But clue number three: Ich bin Maroon!

Ahhhhhhhh you're a sofa!

Once upon a time
Way back a long time ago,
When the universe consisted of nothing more elaborate than
Mark Volman ...

Thank you, Frank

... trying to convince each and every member of this extremely hip audience here tonight,
that he was nothing more, nothing less than a fat maroon sofa,
suspended in the midst of a great emptiness a light shined down from heaven
(* twinkling sounds *)

And there he was ladies and gentleman, the good lord.
And he took, he took a look at the sofa, and he said to himself
"Quite an attractive sofa! This sofa could be commercial...
with a few more Margaritas and the right company."
However, I digress.
"What this sofa needs," said the Big 'G', "Is a bit of flooring underneath of it"
and so in order to make this construction project possible,
he summoned the assistance of the celestial corp of engineers, and,
by means of a cute little song in the German language
(which is the way he talks whenever it's heavy business)
the Good Lord went something like this:
(take it away Jim Pons!)

Gib zu mir etwas Fussbodenbelag
unter diesem fetten fliessenden Sofa
Gib zu mir etwas Fussbodenbelag
unter diesem fetten fliessenden Sofa

And of course ladies and gentlemen that means:
"Give unto me a bit of flooring under this fat floating sofa."
And sure enough boards of oak appeared throughout the emptiness as far as vision permits,
stretching all the way from Belfast to Bogner Regis
and the Lord put aside his huge cigar and proceeded to deliver unto the charming maroonish sofa
the bulk of his message with the assistance of a small electric clarinet
and it went something like this...

Records On Which This Song Has Appeared

Zappa Albums & Side Projects

You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 1

Notes About This Song

• This song was part of the lost Sofa Suite.

CC Clues In This Song

• This song features German lyrics.
• This song mentions Dogs
• This songs references cigars