I do have a cause though. It is obscenity. I'm for it. Unfortunately the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it owing to the nature of the laws as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on but we know what's really involved: dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the Constitution unfortunately. Anyway, since people seem to be marching for their causes these days I have here a march for mine. It's called...
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Smut!
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Give me smut and nothing but!
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A dirty novel I can't shut,
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If it's uncut,
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and unsubt- le.
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I've never quibbled
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If it was ribald,
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I would devour where others merely nibbled.
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As the judge remarked the day that he
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acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
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"To be smut
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It must be ut-
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Terly without redeeming social importance."
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Por-
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Nographic pictures I adore.
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Indecent magazines galore,
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I like them more
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If they're hard core.
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(Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties,
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samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything!
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More, more, I'm still not satisfied!)
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Stories of tortures
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Used by debauchers,
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Lurid, licentious, and vile,
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Make me smile.
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Novels that pander
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To my taste for candor
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Give me a pleasure sublime.
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(Let's face it, I love slime.)
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All books can be indecent books
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Though recent books are bolder,
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For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
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the mind of the beholder.
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When correctly viewed,
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Everything is lewd.
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(I could tell you things about Peter Pan,
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And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)
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I thrill
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To any book like Fanny Hill,
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And I suppose I always will,
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If it is swill
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And really fil
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thy.
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Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
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I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley.
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But now they're trying to take it all
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away from us unless
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We take a stand, and hand in hand
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we fight for freedom of the press.
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In other words,
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Smut! (I love it)
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Ah, the adventures of a slut.
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Oh, I'm a market they can't glut,
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I don't know what
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Compares with smut.
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Hip hip hooray!
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Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
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Don't let them take it away!
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Smut
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| Tom Lehrer |
