I suspect many of our readers will have seen this tweet from Captain Video @OurWorldComic:

Last night while I was trying to lull the homunculoid down the seventy-seven steps of Deeper Slumber, I frittered around a bit and reworked the lyrics of “Piano Man” so they might more closely align with Lovecraft’s works.  While we know HPL could play the piano, at least a little (and cranked out “Yes We Have No Bananas” on a church organ on one occasion), he was a teetotaler who probably wouldn’t have approved of Billy Joel’s boozy anthem to bar musicians.  In that spirit, please enjoy (and forgive?) my creation:

HPL, Old Man

It’s 12 o’clock on Walpurgis Night
The regular crowd shambles in
The Terrible Old Man’s sitting next to me,
With old bottles he’s trapped some souls in.

He says, “Son, can you chant the Black Ritual?
The words are in no human tongue
But it’s mad and it’s bleak and no one’s dared to speak
This rite since the Earth was quite young.”

Iä iä iä di da da
Iä iä di da da da dum

Tell us a tale HPL, old man,
Of things that go bump in the night.
We’ll happily embrace a brand new Dark Age
After science brings madness to light

Now Wilbur’s a tall, goatish, rustic type
Whose studying dark sorcery.
He’s got an ill laugh, and his lower half’s
a vile nightmare that no man should see.

He said, “Ouch this damn’d guard dog is killing me”
As the acrid steam poured off of his face
“It’s my brother that you should be worried about
When he rips his away out of our place!”

Iä iä iä di da da
Iä iä di da da da dum

Now Ed Derby’s a poet and dilettante
Whose mind got swapped by his wife
And he’s talkin’ with Charlie, who’s future’s quite gnarly
Since he brought that dead wizard to life.

In the swamp there’s a white thing (quite polypous),
As some cultist dance round a black stone.
Yes, they’re sharing a dream born in madness
Of the One who calls R’lyeh his home.

Tell us a tale HPL, old man,
Though your racism is more than just slight.
We relish your general misanthropy
And how cats gave you such great delight.

It’s a pretty good crowd out on Devil Reef
And that blasphemous croaking’s quite vile.
It seems my ancestry
came out of the sea,
But for now let me flee in denial…

Like that quote at the end of The Festival
Lucky towns where no wizard hath lain
And the mushroom from afar put your brain in a jar
And say, “Oh crap, I think this ones insane.”

Iä iä iä di da da
Iä iä di da da da…

Tell us a tale, HPL, old man,
Fill us with dread tonight
Well, we’re in the mood for morbidity
And the oldest emotion is fright.

(Thanks to Tyler Hudak for encouraging to post this to the SHP blog.)