by Marc Gunn, June 16, 2003

A few days ago I got a reminder email. A woman had emailed me "a year and a day ago" about how she heard a fun song called "The Pheasant Plucking Song". She thought it'd be cool for us to have a "Pleasant Peasant Pheasant Plucking Song". Okay, I admit it. Sometimes I just nod and smile when people make requests. I don't have time to write them all. But I took a break this week and said, "what the heck", and wrote this tongue twister. Recorded for What Color Is Your Dragon?

There was a pleasant peasant who was living a pleasant life,
Grunting while she hunted for a pheasant to take to knife.
She nightly sharpened up her knife for this tasty endeavor.
And every eve, she fumbled home without pheasant cadaver.

Fi fiddle-li-dee
Sh-dee sh-dum
Fiddle-li-de she-die

One evening while a-wondering alone in empty woods,
She saw a pheasant passing in the brush near where she stood.
She stumbled over stunted stump. The pheasant watched with laughter
As this former pleasant peasant passed out in the pasture.

Unpleasantly the peasant 'rose later with depression,
Lying in a puddle o'mud with a dazed expression.
The pheasant stood there staring at the most unpleasant peasant
When a thought occurred to her that the peasant brought a present.

The peasant saw the pheasant 'proach, pleased with this decision,
The peasant's knife flew for the life of pheasant with precision.
The pheasant sounded like a fife and caught the knife in beak.
While the panicked peasant picked a passage, ran away, and shrieked.

The peasant stumbled over something that filled her cheeks with life.
She fumbled over the pheasant beheaded by her knife.
Now with a pleasant smile, the plucky peasant fumbled home
To pluck the pheasant with the present the unpleasant pheasant stole.

The peasant plucked the feathers and placed them in a pillow.
Remembering the pheasant's face she freed a wicked giggle
To the pleasant peasant, pheasant plucking's a very precious present
(Til) She cooked the bird, choked on a bone, and died a death unpleasant.

Fi fiddle-li-dee
Sh-dee sh-dum
Fiddle-li-de, she died!