While sending a gift abroad from Canada,
I came face to faces with a little dilemma.
All the stamps I had bore a pic of the Queen,
More Queen Lizzie Twos than I had ever seen!
Ah- aaah! Ah- aaah! I couldn’t bear all those ugly royal stares!
Ah- aaah! Ah- aaah! What a scare! They gave me nasty nightmares!
All of those Queens were staring back at me,
Bugaboo-eyed and as wrinkled as could be.
Geriatric clones of the royal kind,
They were horrid enough to make me wanna go blind!
Ah- aaah! Ah- aaah! I couldn’t bear all those ugly royal stares!
Ah- aaah! Ah- aaah! What a scare! They gave me nasty nightmares!
Phase out those stamps, I begged of Canada Post,
Make stamps that look like art instead of British ghosts!
Those Queenie stamps scared the shit out of me!
They left me scared shitless as anyone could be!
Ah- aaah! Ah- aaah! I couldn’t bear all those ugly royal stares!
Ah- aaah! Ah- aaah! What a scare! They gave me nasty nightmares!
But Canada Post, much to my chagrin,
Zoomed in on Liz and showed more wrinkled skin.
Their Photoshop skills couldn’t hide everything,
I hope it will improve by when Prince Charlie is King!
Ah- aaah! Ah- aaah! I cannot bear Charlie’s ultra-wrinkled stares!
Ah- aaah! Ah- aaah! What a scare! The thought of nastier nightmares!
Ah- aaah! Ah- AHHH!! AH- AHHH!!!
Updated for 07.18.10
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Copyright by Minh Tan on listed dated of completion.
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Notes to this poem…
This is an update of the version 1.0 song lyrics I wrote in 2005, which, in turn, came  from a poem I had written in 1992 called Ugly Stamps.
The song and poem told of an incident in 1987 when I was confronted by a whole sheet of Queen Elizabeth II stamps staring back at me. Having been used to Canada’s famously beautiful stamps by then, I was taken back and a little aghast at how this pattern was heading for bad news as she aged and would look worse in the future. The first version of the song lyrics didn’t have a chorus that made grammatical sense, but I hadn’t cared at the time because it was just a funny little song. Also, it was dated, and needed to be brought into the future.
Since this song was first penned, Canada Post has actually zoomed in on the Queen so her wrinkled face made up more of the stamp. They Photoshopped out some of it, what the make-up couldn’t. However, they couldn’t hide everything, of course, because everyone knows the Queen doesn’t look that young. But worse than this were my fears they would do the same sort of stamps when Prince Charles ascends to the throne. He’s already pretty wrinkly, and those ears that are sagging more by the day! Oh, my!
Those were the changes I made to create this version 2.0 of the original song lyrics.
On a more serious note, though, I talk about Charles getting to the throne as if that would automatically happen. By how long the Queen Mother lived (101), if the Queen got some of those longevity genes, she might outlive Charles the way the Queen Mum outlived her second daughter, Princess Margaret. That would be really sad. No Mother wishes to live to attend the funeral of their children. Let’s hope Charles got some of those longevity genes, as well… or find some more affairs as reasons to keep on living.
As a final note, I’d like to say the thing I’m still most proud about these song lyrics is that I used the word “geriatric” in a set of lyrics. 🙂
I’ll post a recording of the song when I get a chance to make on. Hopefully in August 2010.
Minh Tan's Old Poetry 
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