A parody of the song, They Call the Wind Maria, by Lerner and Leowe from the broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. Lyrics for this parody were written by David Buckna. Parody performed by Don Caron
Executive Producers Don Caron and Jerry Pender
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PARODY LYRICS
by David Buckna
Pariah, Pariah
They call the state Pariah
A way out there they got the names
that oligarchs acquire
Their leader’s Vlad, quagmire grows
And the State is called Pariah
Pariah’s recklessness abounds
They send their missiles flyin’
The sky is filled with awful sounds
Ukrainians out there dyin’
Pariah, Pariah
They call the state Pariah
And now all know Pariah’s name
And what it is denyin’
laid bare its plan for all to see
with the war crimes numbers risin’
But then we know resistance grows
Zelensky on the TVs
Pariah censors the word “war”
Exodus of refugees
Pariah, Pariah
They call the state Pariah
Orwellian Newspeak dominates
Disinformation only
But that regime is all alone
In isolation lonely.
Unprovoked was the attack
Pandora’s box is broken
Pariah, leave and don’t come back
for all the world has spoken
Pariah, Pariah
They call the state Pariah
Pariah, Pariah
all wish to be free
ABOUT THE ORIGINAL VERSION
“They Call the Wind Maria” is an American popular song with lyrics written by Alan J. Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe for their 1951 Broadway musical, Paint Your Wagon, which is set in the California Gold Rush. Rufus Smith originally sang the song on Broadway, and Joseph Leader was the original singer in London’s West End. It quickly became a runaway hit, and during the Korean War, the song was among the “popular music listened to by the troops”. Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra recorded the song in 1951, and it was among the “popular hit singles at the record stores” that year. It has since become a standard, performed by many notable singers across several genres of popular music. A striking feature of the song in the original orchestration (also used in many cover versions), is a driving, rhythmic pattern, played on the string instruments, that evokes a sense of restless motion.
It has been referred to as Paint Your Wagon’s “best known song” and “rousing but plaintive.” Musicologist Stephen Citron wrote, “Perhaps the most unusual song in the score is a beautiful ballad of lonely prospectors hungering for their women, “They Call the Wind Maria” – not chauvinistic in this case, for each man is yearning for his own girl.” Lehman Engel wrote that the song “has a cowboy flavor”, and commented that “In the lyric, its folk quality is accentuated.” Engel concluded that “Lerner has invented an interesting kind of narration”. Princeton University historian Robert V. Wells wrote that it is “a sad and wistful song about being far from home”. Theater historian Don B. Wilmeth called the song “haunting”, and said that it evokes “emptiness”.
Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
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