Hapless screams from lyric priggies
Bawling ’bout the dirt
That they see in lyrics; priggies
Spy them and then curse
About all the dirt that is abounding.

Hapless screeds from lyric priggies
In their starched white skirts/shirts.
They’re inclined, these strictured priggies
To take umbrage, blurt
Out how they are hurt by dirt abounding.

On they cry as they’re attacking
Lyrics that offend they have found.
In their eyes morals are lacking
They scream. . .semantic shellacking.

Everywhere there’s lot of priggies
Dishing priggy jive.
They would love to wield their scissors—
Protecting our lives—
Cutting as with knives,
In consternation:
A Comstock* nation.

[fade on sounds of scolding Pythonesque old-lady drag queens]


*Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 – September 21, 1915) was a former United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality. In 1873 Comstock created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public. Later that year, Comstock successfully influenced the United States Congress to pass the Comstock Law, which made illegal the delivery or transportation of both "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material as well as any methods of, or information pertaining to, birth control. George Bernard Shaw used the term "comstockery", meaning "censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality,” after Comstock alerted the New York police to the content of Shaw's play "Mrs. Warren's Profession."