DUMB DOWN – The Freedom Toast with Deborah Bowman

Parody of Downtown – Petula Clark. Written by The Freedom Toast – Video by Parody Project Featuring vocals by Deborah Bowman

A parody of Downtown, with lyrics and audio recording provided by The Freedom Toast.

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LYRICS TO DUMB DOWN

When you’re elected and the crowds are too small,
well, you can always just . . . dumb down.
When you can’t call someone to pay for a wall,
well then, you know you must . . . dumb down.

So wall up in your penthouse and watch Fox in New York City.
Stay in Mar-a-Lago where the waitresses are pretty.
How can you lose?
Your friends are much richer there.
You can forget immigration and Obama care,

and then dumb down!
It’s easy when you just . . . dumb down.
Be great again if we . . . dumb down.
Blame everybody but you.

(Dumb Down, Dumb Down)

Don’t sit around and let the media hound you,
fire off a tweet . . . dumb down.
Make up something outrageous, it becomes so contagious
so let us repeat . . . dumb down.

So wall up in your penthouse and watch Fox in New York City.
Stay in Mar-a-Lago where the waitresses are pretty.
How can you lose?
The new is much faker there.
You can forget all the scandals ‘cause nobody cares.

So let’s dumb down!
It’s gonna be Alt Right. Dumb down!
Watch SNL tonight. Dumb down!
Making US Great Again, now!

(Instrumental break) Dumb Down!

And you may ask a Russian friend to help and understand you,
someone who admires you and lends a cyber hand too.
How can you lose?
With facts we made up today
we can deny global warming, defund EPA,
and go dumb down!
Lying’s no sin when you dumb down!
We’re great again when we dumb down!
Everyone’s listening to you!

(Dumb Down, Dumb Down……..[fade out])

INFORMATION ABOUT THE SOURCE MUSIC

Downtown” is a song composed by Tony Hatch which, as recorded by Petula Clark in 1964, became an international hit, reaching number one in Billboard Hot 100 and number two in UK Singles Chart. Hatch received the 1981 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.

The song has been covered by many singers, including Dolly Parton, Emma Bunton and The Saw Doctors.

Tony Hatch had first worked with Petula Clark when he assisted her regular producer, Alan A. Freeman, on her 1961 #1 hit “Sailor”. In 1963 Freeman had asked Hatch to take over as Clark’s regular producer: Hatch had subsequently produced five English-language singles for Clark none of which had charted.

In the autumn of 1964 Hatch had made his first visit to New York City, spending three days there in search of material from music publishers for the artists he was producing.

He recalled: “I was staying at a hotel on Central Park and I wandered down to Broadway and to Times Square and, naively, I thought I was downtown. Forgetting that in New York especially, downtown is a lot further downtown getting on towards Battery Park. I loved the whole atmosphere there and the [music] came to me very, very quickly”.

He was standing on the corner of 48th Street waiting for the traffic lights to change, looking towards Times Square when “the melody first came to me, just as the neon signs went on.”

Hatch envisioned his embryonic composition “as a sort of doo wop R&B song” which he thought to eventually pitch to The Drifters:
He had scored his biggest success to date with The Searchers’ “Sugar and Spice” modeled on The Drifters’ hit “Sweets for My Sweet”, and had also produced a cover of The Drifters’ “Up on the Roof” for Julie Grant.

It has been said that Hatch gave Julie Grant the opportunity to record “Downtown” which Grant turned down, but this does not accord with Hatch’s statement that he played “Downtown” for Petula Clark within a few days of conceiving the melody and only completed the song’s lyrics after Clark had asked to record it. Hatch has also said that prior to Clark’s expressed interest in “Downtown”, “it never occurred to me that a white woman could even sing it.” How’s that for a bias? You can listen to the song below.

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