William Finn
Why We Like Spelling
[CONEYBEAR]
The chaotic life
Of a twelve-year-old
Is too hard
And you never know what’s coming next
But in spelling
[SCHWARZY]
Things have logic and line
[CONEYBEAR]
And in spelling
[SCHWARZY]
There’s a greater design
[OLIVE]
Though in school we seem strange
At the bee, we seem better
[CONEYBEAR]
As we count out each letter in our mind
[SCHWARZY]
And we find
[OLIVE]
We like spelling
[CONEYBEAR, SCHWARZY, OLIVE]
People love to hate us
‘Cause we’re too damn smart
[MARCY]
In our hearts we do not believe that we’ll succeed
[CONEYBEAR, SCHWARZY, OLIVE, MARCY]
We’re annoying
[SCHWARZY]
‘Cause we think on our feet
[OLIVE]
I’m enjoying
My new need to compete
[CONEYBEAR]
We love nouns
(spoken)
That’s our sport
(sung)
We love talcum on our towels
[OLIVE]
We love consonants and vowels
And we feel
Kinda real
[CONEYBEAR, SCHWARZY, OLIVE, MARCY]
We like spelling
[BARFEE & MARCY]
I like spelling too
[BARFEE, MARCY, CHIP & CONEYBEAR]
It’s a way to not feel rotten
[CHIP]
All the slights are all forgotten
[OLIVE]
And you feel almost normal
[SPELLERS]
We are fearless spellers who love scary words
We’re the nerds with the dictionary on our knees
[MARCY]
Underrate us
[BARFEE]
With our chronic congestion
[MARCY]
Or debate us
[BARFEE, spoken]
That’s a stupid suggestion!
[SCHWARZY]
‘Cause we’ll pummel your butt
When we prove who knows what
[CONEYBEAR]
Though we’re frightened by the sound of the bell
[The bell sounds and the SPELLERS scream.]
[SPELLERS]
We love words
We love words
We love words
We love words
We love words
We love words
We love spelling
[CHIP]
I loved spelling too
That's before I choked on "Tittup"
Losing that word brought so much shit up
That I’ll never recover!
[SPELLERS]
The chaotic life
Of a twelve-year-old
Is too hard
And you never know what’s coming next
But in spelling
Things have logic and line
And in spelling
There’s a greater design
[OLIVE]
Though in school we seem strange
At the bee we seem better
[GIRL SPELLERS]
As we count out each letter in our mind
[SPELLERS]
And we find
We love spelling
It makes us feel normal
We like spelling