Have you heard of a land known as Bangellamore?
Probably not:
It's not there anymore.
But it once was a land by the side of the shore.
Bangellamore made its citizens proud.
It was a very nice place
In fact, the best of the crowd
Bangellamore was a name to say loud.
Every family who lived there had one girl and one boy
Who all wore the same fashions
And owned the right toys
Being so right was a source of great joy.
Off to the schoolyard at just the same time
The boys jumped in puddles, the girls swung purses
No one was off-beat in their rhythm and rhyme
And they all loved the school bell; a beautiful chime.
Every girl and boy went to a school called Glap School
It was the best school of all, the cream of the crop
All the other schools in the world produced fools
So in Bangellamore, Glap School was a rule.
And the children always ate GREEN grapes for their lunch
Purple grapes were, to put it quite plainly, taboo.
Purple grapes meant you weren't part of the bunch
So on green grapes the children would happily munch.
School was dismissed by Ms. Sellamajed
At two thirty-eight on the dot
It was time to go home, and all the roads led
To Bangellamore's beautiful houses of red.
All of Bangellamore lived in houses of red
No other color would do
Every girl and boy was raised and was fed
In one of these beautiful houses of red.
So Bangellamore families lived happily
In their beautiful houses of red
No one in the land sought to live differently. . .
Well, all but Styles Zing-Memble WHO LIVED IN A TREE!
Bangellamore children were given to tremble
When they heard their parents' stern warnings.
"Run, children!" they said. "Run from all that resembles
The face or the body of Styles Zing-Memble!"
Styles Zing-Memble was not seen in town
More than once in long whiles.
But, when he was there, they all met him with frowns
And then rushed away without making a sound.
But they made their sounds when he wasn't in sight
And they spoke his name with hatred and fear
"I hope that I never will see him at night,"
They said, "I would never survive such a fright!"
"It's a shame to us all that he lives here," they said
At tea parties and at town meetings
"He causes us all more grief and more dread
Than any who live in a nice house or red."
One poor family passed right by him one day
The terror the dears must have felt!
They could even hear things he was trying to say
As they rushed in a frenzy to get far away.
"Watch out," said the mother of Anna and Tad
For that man with his awful look.
His look is a mad look and that's very bad."
Only Anna, she thought that the mad look looked sad.
"Why doesn't Styles Zing-Memble belong?"
Anna would never dare ask such a question
All of Bangellamore couldn't ever be wrong.
"Oh well. I'll understand before long."
Many days passed, and Anna lived her routine
She played with her RIGHT toys undisturbed
She went to Glap School and ate her grapes of green
She'd almost forgotten the sight she had seen.
BUT- - -
One day she was playing the Fallamazoo
The music she made filled her soul
It was a great RIGHT toy, being very new
She enjoyed nothing more, so she blew and she blew
And as she was playing the Fallamazoo
She heard an incredible sound!
She turned to learn something that no one else knew.
STYLES ZING-MEMBLE PLAYED THE FALLAMAZOO, TOO!
Then Styles Zing-Memble noticed Anna's stare
And he put the Fallamazoo down
Anna had been told many times to BEWARE
But something she saw in his eyes kept her there.
"Hello, little girl," said the man with a smile
As gentle as Anna had every seen
"I love music," he said, "and I've played for a while-
And I wanted to say you have very good style."
"He loves music?" thought Anna, "This man of our shame?
And his words are so kind and so sweet.
This is so odd, for he is not the same
As the monster I see in my mind at his name."
"Thank you," she said and she felt her voice shake.
She knew her mother would never approve.
"I've afraid I've been making a lot of mistakes
But I really do love the noise this thing makes."
Styles shook his head. "It's not the thing
That's making those beautiful sounds
It's you, no one else, it's your own soul that sings
Songs no one has heard, and they come out on wings."
Anna didn't understand what she heard
But she figured she would someday
She even felt that she had already learned
A lot from this man who was so often spurned.
So often spurned, how sad he must be!
Anna reflected on this.
Such a sad, lonely life, with no company
The life of Styles Zing-Memble, who lived in a tree.
"Life in a TREE?" she thought, "What has he against us
That he does not live the way we all do?"
"Forgive me," she said, "but you're disdained by the best of us
So why don't you live in a red house like the rest of us?"
"The answer to that is very simple," he said
After a moment of awkward hesitation.
"The trouble is that I'm allergic to red!
It makes my eyes itch, and it clogs up my head."
"The sad thing," he continued, with that look in his eyes,
"Is the way people look at it all
No one understands, or even wants to try
You're the first one who has ever asked why."
"Everyone runs away when they see me
I don't get the chance to say 'hello.'
Sometimes I want a red house so very badly
And sometimes I'm sorry I live in a tree."
Said Anna, "That clears up every mystery
If you're allergic to red.
In a red house you'd be very unhealthy
Styles, I'm GLAD that you live in a tree."
"Really?" said Styles, and his face seemed to glow.
"I'm glad you dared to talk to me today
For I want to share something, before I go.
Something I wish that the whole land could know."
"Red, Blue, Orange, trees; none are a curse.
They're all fine to live in, I say
Because people are people, and needs are diverse.
It doesn't make anyone better or worse."
Anna told no one of the talk she had
With Styles Zing-Memble, who lived in a tree
She just went to Glap School with her brother Tad
In her very RIGHT dress of fashionable plaid.
But when she plays the Fallamazoo
She thought of what Styles had said
And she thought she understood it, too.
It was HER voice, not her RIGHT toy, that sang so true.
And one morning, when she was filling her very RIGHT purse
She filled it with purple grapes
Because people are people, and tastes are diverse
It doesn't make anyone better or worse.
