2006 Parody: Act 1, Song 4: "Write My Notes"

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
PARODY 2006
"FINDING BLACHMAN CONTRIBUTORILY NEGLIGENT"

Act 1, Song 4
"Write My Notes"

(Based on The Doors' "Light My Fire") (Youtube)

Setting: Spring 2003, Hauser Hall, Harvard Law School, office of Professor Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz is scrambling to finish up his latest book, "The Case For Israel." He has delegated part of the work to a student ghostwriter, Holly Beth Billington (HLS '04). Inspired by Jim Morrison, to speed up the work on the endnotes to chapters 1 and 2 the musically gifted Dershowitz implores Holly Beth to skip doing independent research and writing and instead simply copy material out of footnotes in a 1984 book on Israel by Joan Peters, "From Time Immemorial."

Jeremy Blachman, narrator:

In the 2005 Parody we made an incredibly lame decision to exempt Professor Alan Dershowitz from scrutiny for his role in the ghostwriting/plagiarism scandals. Early in the year, some bloggers called "AuthorSkeptics" with whom I have a loose association (for example, I came up with their name) summarized quite convincingly based on analysis by Professor Norman Finkelstein and others that nearly half of the endnotes (22 of 52) to the first two chapters of Dershowitz's book were copied straight out of Peters' book, although Dershowitz refused to admit to the copying (he initially claimed he'd read "independently probably 30 or 40 other books" containing the material quoted by Peters) until the uncovering of a "smoking gun" handwritten note from Dershowitz instructing his student ghostwriter to copy some of Peters' footnotes into the manuscript. Dershowitz never denied AuthorSkeptics' summary of the evidence that he'd produced these 22 endnotes by having a student ghostwriter copy them out of Peters' book. Instead he argued there was nothing wrong with what he'd done, and he asserted the ghostwriting on this particular book was limited to the writing of endnotes (he said he'd written the text of the book himself).

I'm not sure why we gave Dershowitz a pass on this, especially with that "smoking gun" handwritten note contradicting his initial denial of the charge. Maybe it was because Dershowitz offered to do a cameo in the show, which is a clever way for a professor to preempt brutal criticism (much more subtle than trying to censor the script directly). Well, the cameo didn't turn out to be very entertaining. Just imagine if we'd said "no thanks" to Dershowitz on that cameo. Just imagine how well a musical skit on Dershowitz based on these facts would have worked in the 2005 Parody . . . .

"Write My Notes"
(Sung by Alan Dershowitz) 

(Here is a MIDI file in case you want to sing it!)

You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
Girl, you are not my ghostwriter
Come on Holly, write my notes
Come on Holly, write my notes
Why not copy Peters' notes

The time to hesitate is through
No time to research anything
No one knows I copy too
Hope the book's not read by Finkelstein

Come on Holly, write my notes
Come on Holly, write my notes
Why not copy Peters' notes

You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
Girl, you are not my ghostwriter
Come on Holly, write my notes
Come on Holly, write my notes
Why not copy Peters' notes
Who not copy Peters' notes
Why not copy Peters' notes
Who not copy Peters' notes!