Once Upon a Time Songtext
von Frank Zappa

Once upon a time
Way back a long time ago
When the universe consisted of nothing more elaborate than
Mark bolman

Oh, thank you frank
And don′t misspell it
That's not marc bolan
That′s mark volman

Hiya friends
I wanna welcome each and everyone of you
I wanna say to you tonight
I feel great
I mean, I feel great
Everywhere I go people are always comin' up to me
And they say mark, mark, mark


Mark are you kiddin'
Lemme tell you this friends:
I am not kiddin′
I mean, I am portly and I am maroon
Well, how many people here tonight can guess what I am?

Aaaah
I can′t guess what you are

Well, then I'll give you some clues
And the first clue is
I am portly
Does that help?

Not much
No, I don′t know who you are

Okay, I got one
Clue number two:
I am double knit

Does that help?

No, not much
Whaddya mean?

Well, then I've to give you one more clue
I know this is gonna give it away
And I hate like damn to tell you this
But clue number three:

Ich bin maroon


Ahhhhhhhh you′re a sofa

Way back a long time ago
When the universe consisted of nothing more elaborate than
Mark volman

Thank you, frank

Trying to convince each and every member
Of this extremely hip audience here tonight
That he was nothing more, nothing less
Than a fat maroon sofa
Suspended in the midst of a great emptiness
A light shined down from heaven

And there he was ladies and gentleman, the good lord
And he took, he took a look at the sofa
And he said to himself
"Quite an attractive sofa"
"This sofa could be commercial"

With a few more margaritas and the right company

However, I digress
"What this sofa needs" said the big 'g′

"Is a bit of flooring underneath of it"
And so in order to make this construction project possible
He summoned the assistance of the celestial corp of engineers
And, by means of a cute little song in the german language
(Which is the way he talks whenever it's heavy business)
The good lord went something like this
(Take it away jim pons!)

Gib zu mir etwas fussbodenbelag
Unter diesen fetten fliessenden sofa

Everybody

Gib zu mir etwas fussbodenbelag
Unter diesen fetten fliessenden sofa

And of course ladies and gentlemen that means:
"Give unto me a bit of flooring under this fat floating sofa"
And sure enough boards of oak appeared throughout the emptiness
As far as vision permits
Stretching all the way from belfast to bogner regis
And the lord put aside his huge cigar
And proceeded to deliver unto the charming maroonish sofa
The bulk of his message
With the assistance of a small electric clarinet
And it went something like this