Plagiarism!

You know, maybe it isn’t ‘Born With a Smile on my Face’ that’s been playing on my mental jukebox on heavy rotation, but something else…

Here’s a YouTube video using the Sykes song as background music:

Now, after you’ve listened to the first verse, listen to this:

So…maybe it’s the Turtles I heard and not Ms de Sykes.

Suddenly I feel a little better about the whole thing.

By the way, who is this guy Clay Aiken in the first video?

He looks a bit like a cross between Thom Yorke and a famous lesbian whose name escapes me.

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is*

I suppose I must have heard it on the radio recently, or something like that, but I just can’t get rid of this song playing in my head.

It’s called ‘Born With a Smile on my Face’  by Stephanie de Sykes.

I don’t have a copy of it, I have never had a copy of it, I never liked it at the time of its success (1974) and I don’t like it now.

Frankly it sucks.

I was born with a smile on my face
the whole of my life’s been a pantomime
born with the need to embrace
the life of a clown telling rhymes

La la la la la la la
la la la la la la la
la la la la

I’m here to help you leisure
give you pleasure
practise to please you
try to tease you
make you feel fine
inject some sunshine
make you feel good
I knew it would

forget the politicians
nuclear visions
the gloomy headlines
official deadlines
let it all go now
let me show how
it’s oh so easy to stay with me

Until I googled the lyrics, I hadn’t realised what a festering pile of prurient ordure they were, either.

‘I’m here to help you leisure’?

WTF?

And there’s far too many ‘La’s’ for my comfort as they’re not relieved by ‘Oooh’s’ or even a ‘Sha’ or two.

So, why is it sticking in my head so stubbornly?

*Noel Coward