Once Upon A Time

(album: You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 1 - 1988)

[FZ:]
Once upon a time, way back a long time ago, when the universe consisted of nothing more elaborate than Mark Volman...

[Mark:]
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 every one of you, I wanna say to you tonight, I feel great. I mean, I feel great! Everywhere I go people are always coming up to me, and they say, "Mark... Mark, Mark."

[Group:] Mark! Mark! Mark!

[Mark:]
"Mark, are you kidding?" Let me tell you this, friends, I am not kidding. I mean, I am portly, and I am maroon. Well, how many people here tonight can guess what I am?

[FZ:] I... don't.

[Howard:] I can't guess what you are

[Jim:] Not me

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

[FZ:] Not much

[Howard:] No, I don't know who you are

[Mark:] Okay, I got one. Clue number two, I am double knit. That helped?

[FZ:] No, not much

[Howard:] What do you mean?

[Mark:]
Well then I have 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

[Group:] Ahhhh...

[Howard:] You're a Sofa!

[FZ:]
Way back a long time ago, when the universe consisted of nothing more elaborate than Mark Volman...

[Mark:] Thank you, Frank

[FZ:]
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. And there he was, ladies and gentlemen, the Good Lord, and he took a, he took a look at the sofa, and he said to himself, "Quite an attractive sofa. This sofa could be commercial."

[Mark:] Thank you, Frank, hiya friends

[FZ:]
"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 Corps 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...

[Jim:] Gib zu mir etwas Fußbodenbelag

[Mark:] Hey!

[Jim:] Unter diesen fetten, fließenden Sofa

[Howard:] Everybody!

[Jim & Group:]
Gib zu mir etwas Fußbodenbelag
Unter diesen fetten, fließenden Sofa

[FZ:]
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 Bognor 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...