Get Your Premium Membership

The Saginaw Song

 In Saginaw, in Saginaw,
 The wind blows up your feet,
When the ladies' guild puts on a feed,
 There's beans on every plate,
And if you eat more than you should,
 Destruction is complete.

Out Hemlock Way there is a stream
 That some have called Swan Creek;
The turtles have bloodsucker sores,
 And mossy filthy feet;
The bottoms of migrating ducks
 Come off it much less neat.

In Saginaw, in Saginaw,
 Bartenders think no ill;
But they've ways of indicating when
 You are not acting well:
They throw you through the front plate glass
 And then send you the bill.

The Morleys and the Burrows are
 The aristocracy;
A likely thing for they're no worse
 Than the likes of you or me,—
A picture window's one you can't
 Raise up when you would pee.

In Shaginaw, in Shaginaw
 I went to Shunday Shule;
The only thing I ever learned
 Was called the Golden Rhule,—
But that's enough for any man
 What's not a proper fool.

I took the pledge cards on my bike;
 I helped out with the books;
The stingy members when they signed
 Made with their stingy looks,—
The largest contributors came
 From the town's biggest crooks.

In Saginaw, in Saginaw,
 There's never a household fart,
For if it did occur,
 It would blow the place apart,—
I met a woman who could break wind
 And she is my sweet-heart.

O, I'm the genius of the world,—
 Of that you can be sure,
But alas, alack, and me achin' back,
 I'm often a drunken boor;
But when I die—and that won't be soon—
 I'll sing with dear Tom Moore,
 With that lovely man, Tom Moore.

Coda:

My father never used a stick,
 He slapped me with his hand;
He was a Prussian through and through
 And knew how to command;
I ran behind him every day
 He walked our greenhouse land.

I saw a figure in a cloud,
 A child upon her breast,
And it was O, my mother O,
 And she was half-undressed,
All women, O, are beautiful
 When they are half-undressed.






Book: Reflection on the Important Things