Orville

Lyrics

[Intro]
(popcorn beginning to pop, building)
Finally. One of them kept it.

[Verse 1]
He was an agronomist! An actual agronomist!
A soil man from Indiana with a doctorate in it,
and he spent forty years cross-breeding corn to find
a hybrid that would pop up bigger, fluffier, more kind
to the bottom of the pan — and in nineteen sixty-five
he had it. He had the corn. And nobody would buy.

[Chorus]
So he put himself on it! Bow tie and glasses and all!
The ad men said "get an actor," and he said "no, I'll do it" —
and they said "you look like a farmer," and he said "I AM a farmer,"
and they said "nobody wants that," and he said "let's see."
ORVILLE! ORVILLE! He sold it as himself!
The only man on this whole record who stayed inside his name!

[Verse 2]
And it worked! It absolutely worked, it worked enormously,
'cause the thing the ad men missed is that he wasn't acting, see —
he really did care that much about a kernel and a hull,
he'd talk your ear off in a supermarket, genuinely,
and people can tell. People can always tell.
The awkwardness WAS the credential. The awkwardness sold.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
Now he sold the company eventually — of course he did, they all do —
but he stayed the face of it, on purpose, till he died,
and the face was his own face, and the name was his own name,
and the bow tie was a bow tie he'd have worn on any day.
Nineteen ninety-five. Eighty-eight years old.
He never had to buy his own name back. He never had to ask.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(popcorn at full roar, then settling)
Just a farmer.
Just a farmer who was right.