[sancta maria mater bertis]
[Time: 4'12"]
[Lyrics: Thom Woodley]
[First performed December 5, 1998 -- show #17]
[Appears as track #1 on "Mainstream Mayhem"]
[Tim: electric bass, Nevin: viola, vocals, Jamie: percussion, vocals, Andy: accordion, vocals, Thom: guitar, vocals]


On one level, this is just a song about finding things truly worthy of worship...
and on the other, it's just our fight song.
Note our blatant plagiarism of Penn State a capella mayhem
with the opening minute of four-part harmonies in Latin.


sancta maria, mater berti
bertus in aetaername, domine sesame
benedictus qui venit in nomine
piu berti, agnus sesame
et tibi redetur votum in bert

who was it who brought this being of beauty to birth?
it must have been holy mary, she's done it once before
the world is full of love with this paragon on earth
all thanks to holy mary, the mother of bert
holy mary, mother of bert

it was 1981
i sat in front of the boob tube
with my laser ray gun, batman underoos on
and i sponged

when suddenly on the screen, there appeared a prophet
amphibious and green and thin, the muppet's mandarin,
you know who i mean.

and kermit said with a grin across his oblong head
that the colour of the world is getting to be too grey
and now we begin, all you gotta do is tune in
and we'll show you every day can be a heliocentric day

he was a little guy with a shock of black hair locked on his head
a conic comic with a dry sarcastic wit
he lived with ernie in a tidy flat with real good hygeine
one look at his striped pullover, i knew he was the shit
rattling off the numbers and the letters of the day
he'd show me things that I never knew started with the letter `p'
and every day we'd take a magical trip to a fabulous educational environment
a banana distribution center or a box factory

but we don't live on sesame street, we live on college avenue
there's a lot less friendly giant birds in our civilization
there's drunks and freaks and crack babies and country line dancing, too
there's robbery and ribalrdy and public urination
we don't exactly live in an age of harmony
but now and then we put our faith in something wholesome just and chaste
that thing is
B
E
R
T.


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