A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

College Medley
Saturday, May 16, 1998
Listen

CHOIR HUMS "Whiffenpoof")

GK: College graduation is not far away, and around every college campus, you can see young men and women with thoughtful expressions look at the Old Quad that soon they must leave and go out into the world and make their fortune.

(WHIFFENPOOF SONG)
At the tables at McDonalds
In the booths at Taco Bell
At the dear old pizza place we love so well,
All the graduates assemble and bid our youth goodbye
And tomorrow we report to Personnel.

We are in our early twenties
And it's sad to say farewell
And to see the shades of middle age appear
Will we too grow dull and stupid like the others, who can tell,
But we'll sing a song if you will buy the beer----

We are college boys who must go to work
I...B...M
In a pinstripe suit and a tie and shirt
I...B...M
Management trainees, nine to five,
Must be sober when we arrive,
How in the world will we survive
I....B....M.

GK: The Class of 1998 is going into a booming economy and a good job market, particularly for liberal-arts graduates ----- young people who can think and write clearly and have some computer skills are in demand these days, even if they're English majors and spent the spring writing about the intertwined-flower motif in Troilus and Cressida, companies are interested in you --- because there is no intertwined-flower motif in Troilus and
Cressida and so a person who can write a ten-page term paper about that is someone who can do very well in the corporate world.

Some graduates, however, are always going to have problems in the
world of work.

(THE HALLS OF IVY)
Here we stand, we music majors,
As we graduate today
Trying to forget the
Student loans we must pay.

On Sundays we'll be hired by a big church choir
For thirty bucks apiece to sing Faure
We'll audition for the Met and maybe we will get
A job at the Metropole Cafe----
May God bless the music majors
As they wander on their way
May they never sing in G-sharp
When the song's in A.

GK: ----

(GAUDEAMUS IGITUR)
Gaudeamus Igitur
I went out on dates with her
Skipped the Latin, skipped the Greek
We went dancing cheek to cheek
Quo-s si- vis videre
I flunked out of seminary
Got a call today from Mary
The kid is due in January
Hello Dad and how are you
Dad I've got some news for you.

(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor