Oh, what we once thought we had, we didn't
And what we have now will, will never be that way again
So we call upon the author to explain
Our myxomatoid kids spraddle the streets
We’ve shunned them from the greasy grind
The poor little things they look so sad and old
As they mount us from behind
I ask them to desist and to refrain
And then we call upon the author to explain
Well, a rosary clutched in his hand
He died with tubes up his nose
And a cabal of angels with, with finger cymbals
Chanted his name in code
We shook our fists at the punishing rain
And we called upon the author to explain
He said, everything is messed up 'round here
Everything is banal and jejune
There’s a planetary conspiracy against the likes of you and me
In this idiot constituency of the moon
Well, he knew exactly who to blame
And we call upon the author to explain
Well, prolix, prolix
Nothing a pair of scissors can’t fix
Well I, I go guruing down the street
And young people gather 'round my feet
And they ask me things but 
I don’t know where to start
They ignite the powder trail straight to my father’s heart
And yeah, once again 
I call upon the author to explain
Yeah, we call upon the author to explain
Well, who is this great burdensome slavering dog thing
That mediocres my every thought?
I feel like a vacuum cleaner, a complete sucker
It’s fucked up and he is a fucker
But what an enormous and encyclopedic brain
I call upon the author to explain
Yeah, we call upon the author to explain, alright, yeah
Well, rampant discrimination
Mass poverty, third world debt
Infectious disease, global inequality
And deepening socio-economic divisions
Well, it does in your brain
We call upon the author to explain
Oh, now hang on, my friend 
Doug is tapping on the window“
Hey, Doug, how you been?”
Well, he brings me a book on holocaust poetry
Complete with pictures and then he tells me to get ready for the rain
And we call upon the author to explain
Well, you know 
I say prolix, prolix
Some a pair of scissors can’t fix
Bukowski was a jerk, 
Berryman was the best
He wrote like wet paper maché but he went the 
HemingwayWeirdly on wings and with maximum pain
We call upon the author to explain
Yeah well, 
I call upon the author to explain
Yeah well, down in my bolt hole 
I see they've published
Another volume of unreconstructed rubbish
Well, the waves, the waves were soldiers moving
Well, thank you, ya thank you, thank you
And again 
I call upon the author to explain
Yeah, I call upon the author to explain
I call upon the author to explain
Yeah, we call upon the author to explain
I said, prolix, prolix
There's nothing a pair of scissors can’t fix