I swore I wouldn’t give in and filk The Wellerman, because it seemed a little too obvious, and I try to avoid being obvious.  But then I heard it being sung, and it stuck, and then I heard the latest news about the latest bullshit scandal from the crony crapitalists of our alleged government, and the exact right words popped into my head, and now here’s the rest.

This is deliberately written to be obviously about the current government but also easily applied to just about any of them.  Harpoon them all, and burn them to the waterline!

March 2021

(To make this easier to sing, I’ve marked the first stress syllable on each line like this.  That’s because the original and this filk are both a bit random in how they apply the stresses.)

There once was a bold democracy
The name of the place was You And Me
The men who ruled were the sort you see
At the bottom of a deep dark hole.

Soon may the reckoning come
To shine the light on the rich man’s slum
They pray that it’s left us numb:
They’ll find it is not so.

A woman dreamt of a good career
In service to all that she held dear
Till one man gave her more to fear
Than all the hells below

Brave survivors took to sea
To save their lives and family
Our leaders shouted: sovereignty!
A home you shall not know!

The men atop their mighty tower
Dreamt of gold and goods and power
Shame about the odd wild flower
Trampled as they go

The poor whose great “essential service”
In dark times could still preserve us
Still don’t get what they deserve as
Handouts elsewhere flow

The men who rule the nation’s parts
Believe they also own our hearts
Perhaps they’ll see their whole world rocks
With a pencil in a voting box