Plague Songs - The Tower of Babel / by Rich Hobbs

“Look, everyone, we’re in deep trouble,

Everything’s a frightful jumble,

But we can come through! Let’s enable

Our land to show them all how nimble

We can be! And let’s think Global

And Build Ourselves a Tower of Babel

    Like that bugger in the Bible,

    An edifice to house a Sybil,

    A thing out of a fucking fable,

        Something we’ll all adore!

“And look, I know it seems a shambles

And we, too, grieve for Auntie Mabel

But let us now create a symbol,

(Look, this is me being humble)

A thing about which bards can scribble,

How We Built Our Tower of Babel

    That rose above the burning stubble,

    A monument that we could cobble

    From the lumps of broken rubble

        Of the stuff we smashed before.

“This way society won’t crumble!

And if you think it’s all a gamble

To you I say, don’t be so feeble!

Heed not the whining reds who quibble!

For ever higher we shall scramble

As We Build Our Tower of Babel

    Til we hammering on Heaven’s gables

    To face that oik born in a stable,

    And yank his beard and burst his bubble

        With a triumphant roar!

“So listen up, you feckless rabble!

You won’t fit me inside a tumbril!

Our chaps have trousered all the roubles

To get you hobbled so that Dom’ll 

Lash your backs til you redouble

The Work to Build My Tower of Babel!

    Then, dressed in robes of finest sable

    Stitched by girls with golden thimbles

    Through its portals I shall amble

        Before slamming the door.”