The Ballad of the Wug and the Cra by Simon Ager

This is a song I started working on in January 2015, and finished a month later. I wanted to write a song about a wug, and it became a kind of love song.

A wug is blue, bird-like creature and a cra is a round, red creature. They feature in linguistic experiments devised by Jean Berko Gleason, a psycholinguist at Boston University. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Berko_Gleason

I sang it in public for the first time at a charity concert in Bangor cathedral in February 2015. The most recent recording was made in September 2017, using sopranino, tenor and baritone ukuleles, and a shaky egg.

Here are the words:

The Ballad of the Wug and the Cra

There once was a wug who lived in a jug
And liked to eat blue beans
He spent his days weaving stories from hay
And then danced and sang all night.

He danced and sang all night,
danced and sang all night
He spent his days weaving stories from hay,
And then danced and sang all night.

And there once was a cra who lived in a jar
high up in a tree
She wore huge hats covered in cats
And hummed in the key of P.

Hummed in the key of P
Hummed in key of P
She wore huge hats covered in cats
And hummed in the key of P.

One fine spring day in the month of March
the wug was wandering in the park
When he spied the cra sitting in her jar
drinking a cup of tea.

Drinking a cup of tea
drinking a cup of tea
He spied the cra sitting in her jar
drinking a cup of tea.

Oh crumptious cra sitting in your jar
Won't you marry me?
We can live by the sea and have crumpets for tea
While you hum in the key of P.

While you hum in the key of P
Hum in key of P
We can live by the sea and have crumpets for tea
While you hum in the key of P.

Oh wandering wug who lives in a jug
Married we cannot be
For you are blue and I am red
And we'd clash horribly.

And we'd clash horribly
Clash horribly
For you are blue and I am red
And we'd clash horribly

So he asked her every day and every night
Until she would marry him
Now they live by the sea and have crumpets for tea
While she hums in the key of P.

While she hums in the key of P
Hums in key of P
Now they live by the sea and have crumpets for tea
While she hums in the key of P.