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The Chopper Lyrics

You heard about the chopper, have ya? The Chopper, what? Oh, that goes back to the Vette. Remember the Vette? Right on. Corvette Stingray, 454 four barrel, superglide transmission. Got her in Toronto. Brought her back home, old man, what a animal! Couldn't go no, I know. Back to Gander where I was living at the time from Toronto, 1800 road miles, did the trip in thirteen and a half hours, including the five hour ferry ride.

I scrapped 'er, eh? I took the engine, 454 four barrel, superglide transmission, and put'n in me Yammie! Remember da Yammie? Wha? My son now that could go. A Yamaha snowmobile with a 454, that could go. I was up on back of Gambo Pond doing 790 miles an hour. I knows that cause the cop clocked me. He couldn't stop me though, because I was operating what we calls an off road vehicle. He never liked me after that. But see now the problem with the Yammie and the 'Vette was friction. Ya knows about friction do ya? Friction? Friction is like this. You got two waterslides okay? Now one waterslide is twisty and turny. And got no water. And he got bolts stuck up through the bottom everywhere. And he's lined off with sandpaper. Now compare that one now, to another one, he's 10 degrees off vertical, he's 100 feet long, and there's water going down over that now say about 30 gallons a second, and you're drawed back like a big old slingshot and let go. Chances are you're goin' to go faster down over that one then you will over the twisty turny one. Why? Because of Friction! Right on! And I got a lot of reason to be concerned about friction, b'ys, cause I'm addicted. Oh yeah, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Oh yeah, if I goes to long without Kentucky Fried I gotta have it liquified and pumped straight into me veins, eh? Oh yeah. And the fact that the Kentucky Fried Chicken shack is in Gander, about 40 miles away from where I'm living in Glovertown is reason to close up the gap a bit. My sonny b'y.
Then I seen it, at the airshow in Gander, you knows about the airshow do ya? The airshow is where there's 2 or 3,000 people stands around on the ground gawking at a half dozen jet fighter pilots see how close they can come to killing thereselves. And they all goes home disappointed when they don't. My son, when she went over, it was like a light went on in me head eh? Jet fighter. And I looks at that and says, AHow fast would I get my chicken, I wonder.." But I priced 'em, eh. Safe to say you're not going to haul the cash outta your back pocket tomorrow or nothing and go buy one. So I focuses on the next piece of high technology at the airshow - the helicopter. Now whatta ya got going on? You got two t'ings going on, you gotta go up and you gotta go forward. Now anything I puts the 454 in is gonna go forward on her exhaust alone. As regards to going up, you needs a prop and some sort of housing to go around it, and I had that. The old 59 Fargo buddy, down in the garden, a bit rusty and grow'd in but solid enough. I was the best part of a summer putting that together. Oh yes my sonny boy, you got to know stuff, like center of gravity and aerodynamics. Center of gravity means this: if you got a 1,000 pounds of 454 engine up front, you got to have 1,000 pounds of ballast in the pan of the truck, you know buckets of nuts and bolts and bits of scrap, copper fittings, whatever you got to throw in the back hey b'y. And the center of gravity got to come up through the center of her where your seat is. And then you needs a prop shaft, well I had that - high performance, high gear ratio, hideal - the rear end of a Corvette Stingray. And she didn't come high enough hey to clear the cab, so I had to put on me two mag rims for s***ers. Now if you're going to try this at home, make sure you got a haircut. And then I had to come up with a prop - you t'inks that's the easy part, don't ya? Yes b'y, you got to know what you're doing, 'cause no ordinary prop is going to do it, see. No ordinary prop is gonna to do it 'cause it spins so fast. You're not going out and carve one out of a birch junk or nutting like that, I can tell ya right now.

Life is like that. You're looking at something all year long you never knows what good it could be used for. My son, that snowplow went up and down the road a good dozen times last winter. Wing plows! 12 feet long, about yay wide each, what a lovely set of wind scoops! Thank God the Department of Highways is good for something though. Now I'm not saying where I got 'em. But she was looking like a pretty handy helicopter buddy when I fitted them on to them mag rims. My sonny b'y, what a animal. See by now, I was fairly uncertain as to what was about to happen when I got the whole rig goin' eh? So I lashed her down to the picket fence with about 100 yards of nylon rope weaved through the rear end 4 or 5 times hey b'y. And then I turned her on, eh, started her up, my sonny, what a beautiful sound my son. Nar m***ler, two 10-inch exhaust pipes, knocked 4 or 5 gulls outta the air, first thing smacko, they hit the ground, lovely. My son, I s'pose. I shoulda warned NASA or the government or something, let 'em know what I was doin', because I had 'er up to about 8,000 RPM when I popped the clutch. Oh yeah, and I always did get first and third mixed up on that old standard transmission. You heard about Star Trek did ya, remember Star Trek? Remember the part in Star Trek where they goes from nutting to warp factor 10 like that, they're gone ? Same t'ing. Only t'ing is I went straight up. I was flattened out like a nipper on a windshield. My sonny by, I went from 6 feet to 2 inches flat just like that. Me, my son I'm gonna tell ya me a***hole come right up in my t'roat. I had to glutch to make me underwear go down over me eyeballs. And if it weren't for the fact that I got me chest muscles all built up up here old man, I never woulda been able to pick me arm up off the seat and shift that shifter back down in first and slow 'er down a bit, old man. And when I looked out I come away with two links of picket fence, and the wife's clothesline pole and all her dozen sets of brassieres stapled on to the clothesline. And thank God the wife is a D cup cause every one of 'em was acting like a parachute and slowin' me down. You seen that movie ATwister"? My son, tornadoes got nuttin' on what this devil of a machine picked up my son. Shovels and birch junks and dogs and chimney bricks and mortar, my son, and shingles and they all goin' around and around and around and then sucked off the ground, and then she fired up her ballast, five gallon bucket gone here, bits of copper pipe and railway iron and bits of cable goin' around, around and around and around. And my son, Mose Harvey seen it. And he jumped up on the pan of his truck and started screechin' about the dreaded pain coming to all the sinners amongst us, and the cow I sucked up over in Glovertown, dropped down in the pan of his truck in Gambo and he drove off singing out APraise the Lord!"

And Lee Ackerman up in Wesleyville, 45 miles off, old man, he called in on the Open Line show and he says ABill, 'tis a cross between the s***e shuttle and a blender! Now b'ys, luh, 'tis one t'ing to be going along doddlin' along towin' a dirty big anchor, but when the rope bust, you never shot forward I know! I come very close...I was doing better than the speed of sound, I knows that 'cause I couldn't hear nutting! I was almost getting up to the speed of light, I knows that 'cause I couldn't see nutting! I knows I wasn't so fast as the speed of smell, though, 'cause I did a dirty big load in me pants. And my sonny b'y, I'm gonna tell ya go? When I figured I was handy to the chicken shack, I took me foot off the accelerator, shoved her into reverse, and my son, popped the clutch again.

Well my sonny b'y, look, they got a big old clearcut up behind Gander, up behind the chicken shack now, and it wasn't the Corner Brook Pulp & Paper Company that did it. If it wasn't for the 3,500 or 4,000 trees that I made 4 inch junks out of, I wouldn'ta slowed down at all. I strolls in to Kentucky Fried, orders a snack pack with the coleslaw. I wasn't there 5 minutes old man, when guess who shows up? Mr. Town Cop bursts in and he says "Who owns dat helicopter outside?" Now, to deny it was mine woulda been foolish, as I attracted a slight of attention getting there eh?

So I says, "You want the coleslaw?" But that only diverted him for 30 seconds because he eats like a gull, hey?
He says, "You're under arrest!"

I said, "What for?!" He didn't know, hey?

So I feeds him a little bit of information, "Helicopter?".

"Yes, right on", he says, "for operating a helicopter without license and insurance".
"Oh", I says, Athat's not a helicopter, old man. That's me '59 Fargo Pickup."

He says, "Oh is it now? All right," he says, "you're still under arrest!"

"What for?!" I says.

"For operating your 59 Fargo without licence and insurance."

And I says to him, I says, "The reason that haven't got licence and insurance is because it is primarily an off-road vehicle!" And he had to let me go on a technicality!
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d'Lard Liftin' (1998)
By D'Lard Liftin' Eileen O'Grady You Make Me Sick Where The Alders Grow Hunting the Duck Blarney Stone / Somewhere in Ireland Flies Bridget and John Mr. Home Hardware The Cabin, The River and I Woodchopper's Breakdown / Fisher's Hornpipe The Chocolate Song The Chopper