I’m guessing this was early on in my relationship with Carolyn. The frog was my animal (to the extent people have animals) largely because I could draw a reasonable facsimile of the frogs inhabiting Walt Kelly’s Pogo, and so I wrote a fairly tale featuring a frog so I could illustrate it. I had the unfortunate and somewhat sexist propensity to characterize Carolyn as a “princess” so it all fit together. Back at a time when I was writing complaining dirges, this was a refreshingly lighthearted departure. I usually include it on the rare occasions when I perform. The guitar riff in the beginning and then in between the verses is a channeling of a folk dance, Sestorka (a/k/a Hoo Ha) danced regularly at the Goldens Bridge Friday night folk dancing.
Lyrics
The Ongoing Tale of the Princess and the Frog
Comes to the morning freshly sprung
Wearing her princess’ gown
Here in a spot she’s never come
Here in a song she’s never sung
My, how she gets around
Wearing her father’s crown
“Here where they say magic trees are planted
“Surely the creatures must be enchanted
“Perhaps once a wand cast a spell o’er this pond
“To be broken by me”
She cries for her loneliness, sighs for her cold heart
When all of a sudden a frog croaking Mozart
Fills her poor heart full of glee
“An enchanted prince this must be”
See how a princess tries to kiss
A frog full of mystery
He tells her “Sure, I was once a prince
“But I soon gave it up and haven’t tried it since
“So why kiss me
“I am what I want to be”
She tells him of crystals and magic ointments
Of all of her searching and disappointments
The frog understands her and so he commands her
“Listen to me
“Perhaps your problem is not that you’re lonely
“And not that you need a Prince Charming, but only
“That in this cold world where we dwell
“Even princesses fall under spells”
Now sometimes in morning you can see
If you’re willing to bend down
A frog listening most eagerly
To a frog croaking most unregally
The girlfrog he hangs around
Far from her father’s crown
For in that moment she almost missed him
He told her to bend anyway and kiss him
And now housed in a silly pad, built on a lily pad
There they be
So when she goes let her grow like Alice
Finding her way from her father’s palace
She who’d settle on queen’s in a fog
When she could just as well be a frog.