Lyrics

Swing Banned

The Roman Inquisition
said the earth can’t go around the sun.
There’s an asbestos-bound edition
of Fahrenheit 451.
They anonymized Jane Austen.
Barred Huckleberry Finn.
Books were banned in Boston,
and they burned them in Berlin,

Retro-futuristic paleo-Nazis
said the Swing Kids danced to degenerate jazz.
They blocked the publication of a history of prisons
by the Birdman of Alcatraz.

Voltaire was locked in the Bastille.
They stoned Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Dostoyevsky went to jail.
They pilloried Daniel Defoe.
South Africa banned Sophie’s Choice.
Bulfinch censored Shakespeare’s “damned”.
The USA outlawed James Joyce.
Did China ban Green Eggs and Ham?

They banned the bikini and they banned the burka
on the beaches of Spain and the beaches of France.
Back when pole dancing meant a mazurka
the can-can was a scandalous dance.

Retro-futuristic paleo-Nazis
said the Swing Kids danced to degenerate jazz.
They blocked the publication of a history of prisons
by the Birdman of Alcatraz.

Masterpieces of fine arts
were neutered when those priggish prudes
glued fig leaves on the private parts
of Michelangelo’s nudes.
The Hays code censored Hollywood
and chastened Betty Boop.
They couldn’t kiss in Bollywood,
and Mussolini banned Duck Soup.

They banned the bikini and they banned the burka
on the beaches of Spain and the beaches of France.
Back when pole dancing meant a mazurka
the can-can was a scandalous dance.