Waaaay back in the day, Fenzel and I decided that it would be a good idea to write an elaborate Broadway musical. About zombies. There have actually been zombie musicals before, mind you, but what sets ours apart is that it would be played completely straight. Or rather, as I think one of us said at the time, “No parody element that we can dream up is going to be more fundamentally ridiculous than the fact that there are singing zombies on the stage.”
Anyway, that was a long time ago. We put in a lot of work. But we did not put in enough. And for a long time, it looked like no part of Brains! The Musical of The Living Dead would ever see the light of day.
But since we mentioned the project on the podcast a while back, it seemed only appropriate to toss something up this week. This isn’t necessarily the best song we wrote for the show, but it’s definitely the most stand-alone-y. All that you need to know to enjoy this is that the heroes are about to make a stand against the zombie hordes, and they’re reviewing strategy. The guy who is singing is named Hank. (That might not have made the final draft.)
Here’s the sheet music:
The Only Way To Kill A Zombie (PDF)
Here’s a terrible MIDI realization (think of it as lo-fi, if that helps).
The Only Way To Kill A Zombie (MP3)
And here are the lyrics…
Remember – aim high! shoot ‘em in the head!
The only way to kill a zombie
is to destroy his brain!
You can carve his heart out of his chest
But that won’t slow him down.
The only way to kill a zombie
is to destroy his brain!
You can cut the legs out from under him
But he’ll push along on his stubs.
The only way to kill a zombie
is to destroy his brain!
You can chop his head off at the neck
But his jaws will snap at your ankles.
The only way to kill a zombie
is to destroy his brain!
He will keep walking and keep feeding
until somebody stops him.
And that, gentlemen,
Is what we have come here to do.