Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?
"Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?" is a song by Ween from the 1994 album Chocolate and Cheese.
Song Details[edit | edit source]
Recording and Composition[edit | edit source]
"Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?" is, for the most part, in the key of E major, though the bridge shifts to D major. The song is one of the few Ween songs to feature a key change, with it briefly shifting up to F major near the end of the solo and then to F# major at the end of the song.
Dean Ween sings the lead vocal (though Gene Ween sings the song live) and plays the guitar solo on the album version.[1] He also plays the drums.[2]
The song idea and the phrase, "Mister, would you please help me pony? I think his lung's fucked up," were conceived by Deaner during an intense mushroom trip late at night on tour in a Seattle hotel.[3] Producer Andrew Weiss pressured Deaner to put a bridge section into the song, to add to the simpler structure most previous Ween songs had used. In response, Deaner added the "Poooo-ny" part, in which he used a guitar chord that he took from "Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder.[4]
Live Performances[edit | edit source]
"Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?" was first played with the live band in March 1994, six months before the release of Chocolate and Cheese. Ever since, it has remained a common live song during every era of Ween. It was even adapted with country instrumentation during the 1996 country tour.[5] Ween has officially released live recordings from Mollusk tour (December 1997) and the White Pepper tour (7/7/2000), which can be heard on the albums Paintin' the Town Brown and Live at Stubb's, respectively.
In 1999, Dean Ween wrote about playing this song live:
This has always been our favorite song to play. It's a good balance between sweet and tender and totally horrible. When this song sounds bad live it's completely unlistenable; when it sounds good it sounds like this [referring to the Paintin' the Town Brown version].[6]
In addition, "Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?" was played numerous times by the Dean Ween Group in 2015 during the Ween hiatus.[7]
Lyrics[edit | edit source]
Official lyrics were printed in the Chocolate and Cheese liner notes:
Mister, would you please help my pony?
He's over there behind the tree
He's down in the dirt, would ya help him?
I think it's his lung
Mister, would you please help my pony?
He's chewin' bark and not the leaves
He's cryin' like a baby, would you help him?
I think it's his lung
Mister, would you please help my pony?
He's down — he ain't gettin' up
He coughed up snot in the driveway
And I think his lung's fucked up
Pony, pony, pony
Mister, would you please help my pony?
He's over there lookin' at me
He can't talk because he's a pony
I think it's his lung[8]
Song Themes[edit | edit source]
Profanity/Swearing, Stallion, Sung by Dean Ween
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ H. Shteamer, Chocolate and Cheese, p.79
- ↑ H. Shteamer, Chocolate and Cheese, p.59
- ↑ H. Shteamer, Chocolate and Cheese, p.80–81
- ↑ H. Shteamer, Chocolate and Cheese, p.79
- ↑ https://brownbase.org/every_time_played.php?band=all%20bands&song_id=122
- ↑ From the Paintin' the Town Brown liner notes
- ↑ https://brownbase.org/every_time_played.php?band=all%20bands&song_id=122
- ↑ From the Chocolate and Cheese liner notes.