Lyrics: Simon Drowner/Jo Bevan/Rob Hardy/Caroline Helbert
Music: Simon Drowner/Jo Bevan/Rob Hardy/Caroline Helbert
Oh you venerated writer
Could your knighthood be much whiter?
Caricature, yeah for sure
You write the eloquent charismatic poor
Oh how we shiver to defend
The sweaty words of celebrated men
I will suck your poison pen
To bring the novel back again
Hero, nihilist, jailer
You are all so tall and sesquipedalian
Tell me more about alienation
You laureate of your station
Oh how we shiver to defend
The sweaty words of celebrated men
I will suck your poison pen
To bring the novel back again
(With hard-edged narrative, history, geography
Protagonist's progress, not autobiography
His introspection cannot be indulgent
An objective sun, he glories effulgent
I've waited for years to speak truth to power
How fashion's excluded the man in the tower
How fashion eludes the man in the tower
How fashion eludes the man in the tower
Oh how we shiver to defend
The sweaty words of celebrated men
I will suck your poison pen
To bring the novel back again