It was only gonna be a little three-hour jump
‘Till the barometer bottomed out and the Minnow went bump
But you make chocolate milk when life gives you turds
Ain’t nothin’ like Thurston Howell and The Thirds.

When that sightseeing gig hit a bit of a snag
It stopped that tight trio from bein' everyone's bag
Because, Daddy, those cats are just too cool for words
Ain’t nothin’ like Thurston Howell and The Thirds.

TH III drips with sophistication,
But it don’t stop the man from syncopatin'
They trumpet like elephants ‘n twitter like birds
Ain’t nothin’ like Thurston Howell and The Thirds.

It’s Thurston on the keyboards settin’ the pace
Little Buddy on drums, the Captain on bass
Wowin’ folks drinking coconut shaken-and-stirreds
Ain’t nothin’ like Thurston Howell and The Thirds.

They blow sixteenths and eights and do it in style
Cooler than cats on any charted isle
Keep your Goodman Quintets and your Thundering Herds
Ain’t nothin’ like Thurston Howell and The Thirds.

They took their shovels and digging tools
To the top of Highgate Hill,
They walked in a deadly silence there
In the dusk, in the evening chill,
They picked their way through the deep-laid bones,
The monuments, great and small,
And looked for the plain Rossetti stone
In their search for Elizabeth Siddal.

That red-haired, wraithlike, ghostly girl
Who had charmed the PRB,
She'd sat, at first, for Deverell
Who was doomed, with Bright's Disease,
She'd fallen hard for the artist then
Though her love was never returned,
For Deverell died so suddenly -
It was as if her love was spurned.

She sat for Dante Gabriel,
For Holman Hunt, Millais,
As the model for drowned Ophelia
In an ice cold bath she lay,
She lent her beauty to every brush,
Each stroke laid bare her soul,
When she looked around for herself she found
There was nothing left at all.

Rossetti had kept her close to him
As he slowly became obsessed,
He scribbled a dozen portraits from
Her head to her heaving breast,
He placed her high on a pedestal,
A Madonna in all but name,
But kept his physical love from her
That she might not suffer shame.

He penned the poems he wrote for her
In a small, grey calf-skin book,
He carried the poems everywhere
As a proof of the love it took,
He made no copies, he held them close
They were food for a future muse,
For his art and poetry vied with him -
It was painting he would choose.

But she; who knew what rent her soul,
The cravings she despaired?
She sipped at the potion laudanum
As her heart and her mind were bared,
She scribbled the weary verses that
Spoke love, of a love long-lost,
While Dante frolicked with Annie Hughes
At Elizabeth Siddal's cost.

As Lizzie despaired on laudanum
She had ceased to be of use,
Her visage was sad, and aged and drawn
In the sick room of abuse,
While girls with youth, vitality
And an earthy yen for sin
Like ***** Cornforth, came to sit -
And Rossetti let them in.

They wed, but much as a faded dream
The knot had been tied too late,
As Lizzie, dying a little each day
Succumbed to a morbid fate,
For one dark night she had laid her down
Penned a final note, to whit:
'My life has become so miserable
That I want no more of it.'

She lay by an empty laudanum phial,
Rossetti was quite distraught,
He'd loved her, but with a purer love
Than his lust or his money bought,
His grief was such, as he laid her down
In her coffin, she looked so fair,
That he placed the book of his poems
Between her cheek and her auburn hair.

The years went on and he sank himself
In a pit of despond, unwell,
Withdrew from his friends and dosed himself
With a phial of chloral,
His painting suffered, his income too,
He turned to the ancient muse,
And thought of the poems beyond the grave,
He knew that he'd have to choose!

He wrote to Charles Augustus Howell
A rogue that he'd used before,
To test him; whether to dig her up
Or to lose his poems forever;
Howell replied he should get them back,
Or he'd lose them to death, for good,
'Your works are the works of genius,
Bring them back to the world - You should!'

So Howell, he toiled up Highgate Hill
While Dante hid in his lair,
Too scared to look on his love again,
His muse with the auburn hair,
A fire was lit in the dead of night
The coffin was raised on high,
His love was torn from her deathly stare
They could almost hear her sigh.

The book was caught in her tangled hair
Which had filled the coffin's space,
And she was lovely, and quite serene
As they lifted the book from her face,
They lowered her gently, back in the ground
That had served as her awful tomb,
She lay defiled like a bride, reviled,
But without her lawful groom.

Rossetti published his poems then,
They sold by the thousandfold,
For Howell had leaked the story out
That he hadn't wanted told;
But a fate awaited Augustus Howell
A revenge that would beggar belief,
He was found, throat cut in the gutter -
With a coin, tight clenched in his teeth!

David Lewis Paget

I know you don't know me
But I've known you since 14
Like a long time friend
But I just look at a screen
Before I could drive
I watched your rise to fame
Back in 2013

As I wandered the halls
Face heavy as lead
I smeared on black eyeliner
Just as you said
You did at the same age
And I listened to Muse
Alongside the whole phandom
Just cause you liked the band

I'd come home after school
Throw my body on the bed
As the woes of adolescence
Rang over my head
A quiet, depressed girl
Shoving cinnamon bread
Down her throat

I opened my computer
And watched you and Phil
For hours and hours
And hours on end
As many teens still do to this day
You brightened my smile in a way
That very few could do
Especially back in those
Dark days at school

I'd sketch your old username
Into my desk
Hoping that the person
Who sat there next
Might possibly know
Who danisnotonfire is
The chance was small
With only one million subs
You were all ours

Time has passed
I was doing algebra
While you were becoming world famous
I was about to graduate
While you were on tour
I was overcoming my depression
As where you

As fate has it
I reached another all time low
The waves caved in on me
I had no where to turn to
So I retreated back to that place
I went many years ago
And watched your videos
The familiar rhythm of your voice
Your now curly hair
It was like a distant memory
Coming to life again

You and Phil deserve the world, Daniel James Howell
Your smiles and laughter are contagious
In this world of mistrust and confusion
You are there for anyone who needs it
And your fame hasn't changed you one bit
You are who I'm going to show my kids to when I'm 30
My grandkids when I'm 60
And tell them you meant the world to so many
Thank you, Daniel Howell
I love you