5,000 Fingers of Dr. T -- What About Me?

Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) wrote this extremely strange and creepy 1953 Musical. The story was simple, young Bart doesn't like his piano lessons, his piano teacher, and fears his widowed mom would marry Mr. Terwilliker (Yes, that's where Sideshow Bob got his last name.) Obviously, the uber-cool ex-GI plumber that shows up must be there to rescue Bart and his mom from the piano teacher.

Bart dozes off and the resulting dream is pure Seuss at his most creepily charming. This movie actually scared the hell out of me as a kid, the guy trapped in the drum alone is the stuff of nightmares.

But never let it be said Seuss was strictly a children's author. Most of his works had a deeper message, and this one seemed to be aimed at the women widowed in WW2: Remarry cool dudes that have seen service and don't inflict freaky piano teachers on your kids.

And the song: "What About Me?", a rock opus to the spoiled, short sighted, and annoying person in your life. Selfish to the nth degree, vain, and you kind of wish their mom did marry the creepy Terwillikers of the world. (Or suspect that they did.)

This song has an alternative set of lyrics, it just depends on whether or not Tedd remembers the original lyrics, and occasionally was performed as "What About Trees?" (Ironically, inspired by The Lorax.)

And other times, he wouldn't remember any of the lyrics, and the song would go "bla bla bla bla..."

Yeah, he's a master lyricist.

The band is Street Legal, the movie is available at Amazon, the trailer, of course, from the Internet Archive.

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Music

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• 5000
• Fingers
• Dr.
• Seuss
• Street
• Legal
• Trailer
• Musical
• Rock
• Surreal
• Selfish

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T stands for TEDD !!! nice job!