Silly song

I will die, doobeedoobee
I will die, doobeedoobah
It’s possible, doobeedoobee
Almost certain, doobeedoobah
But who will kill me?

Perhaps I’ll be killed
By the terrible First,
Or his baby brother,
The Little Second;
The Third’s a possible,
And the Fourth and the Fifth
And even the Sixth.
But in November
My ideal choice
Is lucky Seven.

I will die, doobeedoobee
I will die, doobeedoobah
It’s likely, doobeedoobee
Almost certain, doobeedoobah
But who will kill me?

The lurid Eighth
Could be my killer,
Or the rainy Ninth
If it’s got any sense.
And  there’ll be a night
‘Twixt the Tenth and the Eleventh
When I might get taken
for a late-night ride.
The kindly Twelfth,
From time to time,
Covets the role
Of the fateful Thirteenth.
Even the Fourteenth,
Normally anodyne,
Waits with a knife.

I will die, doobeedoobee
I will die, doobeedoobah
It’s likely, doobeedoobee
Almost certain, doobeedoobah
But who will kill me?

I don’t want to die
On the Fifteenth day,
Or the Sixteenth either,
And to tell the truth,
The Seventeenth
Just wouldn’t suit me at all.
But then neither would the Eighteenth
- for reasons sentimental.
And the Nineteenth somehow
Would seem unnatural,
While the Twentieth sounds banal,
And I’d rather not talk
About the Twenty-first
Let alone the Twenty-second.

I will die, doobeedoobee
I will die, doobeedoobah
It’s possible, doobeedoobee
Almost certain, doobeedoobah
But who will kill me?

On the Twenty-third
I’ll go for a walk,
On the Twenty-fourth
I’ll be in Baghdad;
On the Twenty-fifth
I’ll slip away
to Isfahan;
Catch me if you can!
On the Twenty-sixth
And Twenty-seventh
I’ll eat only apples;
Poison them if you dare!
On the Twenty-eighth
I’ll go for a swim,
On the Twenty-ninth
I’ll be floating blissfully -
Whip up a whirlpool
If you know how.

I will die, doobeedoobee
I will die, doobeedoobah
It’s possible, doobeedoobee
Almost certain, doobeedoobah
But who will kill me?

The Thirtieth, because
It’s an even number,
The Thirty-first,
because it isn’t.
Both are criminal,
Both are professional,
In every hospital
They haunt the terminal:
They know when it’s finally final.

Translation by Margaret Jull Costa