john oates' moustache

On Tuesday night, Hall & Oates received the BMI Icons award at the 56th Annual Pop Awards in Beverly Hills. The duo was praised for exerting “unique influence on generations of music makers.” As you can see, Daryl Hall and John Oates were both present at the ceremony – but Oates’ moustache was a no show. The effect was stunning. It was like seeing the members of KISS without their makeup or Charlie Sheen without an STD.

I don’t know how long it’s been since Oates shaved it off – and I don’t care to know. For me, the pain is fresh. The wound is deep. And the poem that ensued is rhymey…

The famed 1980s –
An era defined
By science rendering
Thomas Dolby blind

By John Hughes movies
By the pursuit of cash,
Prince songs good and bad,
And John Oates’ moustache

No one really knew
What Oates did in the duo
Hall sang all the songs
Oates chimed in with “ooooo” and “ohhhh.”

But after each show
Came the great groupie bash
Hall was much better looking
But one glance at that ’stache

And the chicks – how they’d flock
They fell under its power
It was moist and so manly
Like a wet Rutger Hauer

Hall was tall, he was blond
He could sing in falsetto
But John Oates’ soup strainer
Helped fill up his bed-o

Yet now when we gaze
Right below the Oates nose
There is vacant terrain
Clearcut and bulldozed!

No moustache presiding
No hair to be savoured
A top lip despoiled
Of its dear lifelong neighbour

Upwards it did travel
Through the clouds it did fly
To the great resting place of
Facial hair in the sky

And there nestled cozy
Black whiskers detached
Next to Conan’s strike beard
And Garth Brooks’s soul patch

Godspeed fair lip tickler!
Adieu thick pornstache!
You have earned your repose
Just like B.J.’s from M*A*S*H

No more shall you suffer
You’re now a hair ghost
And eternally free from
Those crumbs left by toast

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