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Song Parodies -> "Enslaved (Revised Version)"

Original Song Title:

"Grenade"

Original Performer:

Bruno Mars

Parody Song Title:

"Enslaved (Revised Version)"

Parody Written by:

Christie Marie M

The Lyrics

A revised version of the previous satire. I usually don't prefer to resubmit the same parody again, but I had to clean up pacing issues on the last part and there were some parts that were messy as well. As mentioned before, slavery in the United States was a form of slave labor which existed as a legal institution in North America for more than a century before the founding of the United States in 1776, and continued mostly in the South until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865 following the American Civil War. Most slaves were black and were held by whites, although some Native Americans and free blacks also held slaves; there were a small number of white slaves as well.

To top it off, this satire relates to the era of Slave Trade in the US to the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863.
Sleazy run, treason road
Captured; outwitted, no!
Take, take, taking us
On that crowded ship [1]
Should’ve known, there’d be trouble
Since they’ve grown rich [2]
Land had grown much cotton
Why treat us rotten? [3]

Chaining all us blacks [4]
Had they worked us: roughly brash
Deprived us from all cash, they did
They treat us oh so rough
Our lives are slightly drab
But what we do understand
Is…

They had us enslaved, so true
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Our youth they had depraved, so blue [5]
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
It’s a jump start of slave trade, so true
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
There’s no such luck as escape, so blue
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

Oh…oh…
They would work us through the grain
Harvest crops till we are in pain
Yes, we'd toil night and day, maybe
Still they put us in shame

Oh, no, no, no

Bashed, thrashed, slashed and bruised
Whipped us till we're numb [6]
Can’t believe they got away with murder
Battles they had won
Back breaker, hard labor
Worked us all like dogs
Yeah, our face fills with rage when they leave us tasks: backlogged

Faith is all we had
So we prayed for much we can
Put faith in God, we had, yes we did [7]
Still under their command
Still prayed for freedom bad
Such treachery: underhand
When…

They worked us as slaves for free
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Worked our bones to the grave, I see
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Most of those crops we had paved for free
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
We gin picked cotton; manmade: Whitney [8]
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

Oh...no...
They had drove us all insane
Depression had numbed through our brains
We hoped to flee from them, maybe
Though they’ll still keep us chained

If only there’s one desire
Most of us slaves they’ll liberate
Maybe we’ll be free; Brown: inspired [9]
Hope for freedom, freedom, freedom, please maybe?

(Short Instrumental Break)

So, finl’ly, they’ll emancipate us as slaves [10]
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Pressure from us, we’re liberate [10]
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Travel straight to the North to escape [11]
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Now with success we escaped tirade
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

Oh…oh...
Victory we now elate
It's a new way to celebrate
Abolished slavery lately
Slaves: they eliminate

Finl'ly emancipate
By God we placed our faith
Yeah, a start of our new fate
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
[1] Not only to African-Americans were held captive in the cramped slave ship on the way to the South of the US, sickness and disease were constant companions to both slaves and crew. Mortality amongst both was high, from disease, mistreatment, accident and suicide according to this article in http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/slavery-ships-and-sickness.

[2] Rich in cash crops, such as good-quality soil for large plantations of high-value cash crops, such as tobacco, cotton, sugar, and coffee.

[3] The slaves did the manual labor involved in raising and harvesting these crops. By the early decades of the 19th century, the majority of slaveholders and slaves were in the southern United States, where most slaves were engaged in a work-gang system of agriculture on large plantations, especially devoted to cotton and sugar cane. Such large groups of slaves were thought to work more efficiently if directed by a managerial class called overseers, usually white men.

[4] Slaves were chained together and marched to the coast. Sometimes this could take many days or weeks. (According to the article “Black Peoples of America - Effects of Slavery on Africa” in Historyonthenet.com.)

[5]Even children were even captured and sold to slavery as well.

[6] Slaves were punished by whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding, and imprisonment. Punishment was most often meted in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but sometimes abuse was carried out simply to re-assert the dominance of the master or overseer over the slave. The law provided slaves with virtually no protection from their masters. On large plantations this power was delegated to overseers. These men were under considerable pressure from the plantation owners to maximize profits. They did this by bullying the slaves into increasing productivity. (As mentioned in "Whipping of Slaves" http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASwhipping.htm).

[7] Prayer is the only means of hope to deal with and ask the Lord’s help to find means to escape slavery.

[8] Eli Whitney (December 8, 1765 – January 8, 1825), the prolific and proactive inventor of the cotton gin, the machine that quickly and easily separates cotton by its seeds. However, it didn't reduce the need for slaves to pick the cotton.

[9] John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States.

[10] The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. The Proclamation immediately freed 50,000 slaves, with nearly all the rest (of the 3.1 million) freed as Union armies advanced. (Wikipedia)

[11] Relates to the Underground Railroad which helped escape the slaves to freedom. People who worked for the Underground Railroad felt that they had to set slaves free because it was wrong to make people work for no pay. Many also thought that people should all be treated equally, even if they had different colored skin. They helped slaves escape to freedom in the north by hiding them and moving them in wagons, on horse, and on foot. Abolitionists also helped slaves escape by giving them shelter and food along the way. (As stated in: http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/underground_railroad.htm).

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Voting Results

 
Pacing: 5.0
How Funny: 5.0
Overall Rating: 5.0

Total Votes: 7

Voting Breakdown

The following represent how many people voted for each category.

    Pacing How Funny Overall Rating
 1   0
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 2   0
 0
 0
 
 3   0
 0
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 4   0
 0
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 5   7
 7
 7
 

User Comments

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AFW - December 22, 2011 - Report this comment
Nice retouch...I guess all parodies leave room for improvement...I tend to be a little lazy in that dept...Merry Christmas to you
Matthias - December 22, 2011 - Report this comment
Wow! Somebody really put their mind to work for this parody. This was brilliant in more ways than one. It was like reading a modern School House Rock song. I loved it. Hope you stick around and keep writing these awesome parodies.
Christie Marie M - December 22, 2011 - Report this comment
Thanks lots, AFW and Matthias! :) AFW - Thanks for your comment as always, friend and Happy Holidays to you too! Hope you have a good one! ;) I'm usually lazy in the department as well, but I had to retouch it for this parody contest I'm participating in the site so it could be readable/singable and end up wowing the people who v/c. Matthias - The first time I written this parody, I kind of rushed through it to be quite honest. Yes, I did put my mind to work for this satire. I've been learning a lesson or two from my friend TT. Yeah, I find it imperative to back up my sources when I write my parodies so it could be understandable to anybody reading them. However, basically, I've been getting bits and pieces of info from Wikipedia and other educational sites relating to Slavery in the US, even though I felt like I was in High School again. Therefore, I'm glad that you enjoyed my parody and so glad I was able to construct my creativity, knowledge, and logic into this and submitting this one the second time. It's all worth it. I also learn from the most talented parody artists in the site who put their hard work into their satires. I also want to wish you happy holidays as well. :)
Abbott Skelding - December 27, 2011 - Report this comment
Great work! Very educational and done in a tasteful way that wasn't poking fun at the topic, but rather using parody to inform, nice job!
Porfle Popnecker - December 27, 2011 - Report this comment
Great job!
Christie Marie M - December 28, 2011 - Report this comment
Thanks lots, Abbott and Porfle! :) Abbott - That's the idea..about it being educational, I mean! Yeah, took me all night to complete this one. I'd like to inform and provide as much info as I can to back up what I'm writing in my parody so it's understandable to readers/singers. Porfle - Thanks again and glad you enjoyed this one!
bobpiecheese - January 03, 2012 - Report this comment
(Ages5) Wow, this was awesome, easily one of the best educational parodies I've ever read. 555!
Christie Marie M - January 03, 2012 - Report this comment
Thanks lots, bobpie/T-COP! :)...Glad to have fed you with some educational nourishment with this one! :)
Blaydeman - January 07, 2012 - Report this comment
(AofA) I agree with TCOP and Abbott. This wasn't poking fun at your topic this was an informative parody, which I happen to like. And it is THE BEST informative parody I've ever read! This is excellent. You rhymes were unbelievable. Just WOW! I wish I could give you straight 10's, because you deserve no less, but I guess 555 will have to do.
D-Mon - January 08, 2012 - Report this comment
(AofA) Highly informative, very clever, lots of excellent rhyming, there are so many great thing sto say about this one! Probably my favorite of all the ones I've read from you.
Arwen - January 09, 2012 - Report this comment
Ages...I thought this was well written, informative, and all around good. :) Nice work!!

Sidenote: For my personal taste, I find the footnotes to kind of be distracting. When I see a footnote, I want to read it right away....which pulls me away from the song...but maybe that's just me. Basically, I think you lay out your information well enough in the lyrics that you don't need them...
Tommy Turtle - January 15, 2012 - Report this comment
Great job of using parody to inform as well as to entertain. DKTOS, so can't assess the pacing changes, but I'll trust the others on that. 555

@ Arwen: It's always personal choice whether to go straight through the song first, then look at the notes later, or to read the f/n in real time. If one is *singing* it, surely skip the notes. ("Notes" -- LOL!)

Agree that the lyrics were informative, but we can't be sure that everyone knows every bit of history in this parody -- especially since AIR has members in UK and Commonwealth nations, not just US.

Andy P., for example, (from UK) has commented that he knows little of US history. So some explanations may be needed.
I say, if someone doesn't need them, don't read them, but better to AIR -- I mean, err -- on the safe side. This was discussed more fully here:

http://www.amiright.com/parody/70s/donmclean163.shtml

Sidenote: You've missed yourself being plugged in several TT parodies, if that matters.

http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/franksinatra157.shtml
          which had a link to your song page, and alvin commented on your inclusion. ... btw, the ref was was facetious, for the sake of rhyme, but surely a compliment to have been chosen as a standard by which to measure others. Hope it's taken that way. ... and, uh, there was one of those dreaded "footnotes" to justify the otherwise unprovable. :wink:

http://www.amiright.com/parody/80s/bonnietyler44.shtml

Cheers.

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