‘Little Nell’ presents an unethical song expressing unethical ideas.
I was crossing the backs when I noticed a lad:
He was marching and singing and swaying a tad.
And his pallor revealed him a student of STEM
And his self-composed song was revealing of them.
For I wonder sometimes as I saunter along
‘Oh, you foolish old man!’ he said with a guffaw.
And what thoughts fill the hearts of these sciency folk;
So I gave this young fellow a sociable poke.
I said, ‘Son, sing out louder—come on, let us hear
What ideas have been brewing this many a year
In that uncoiffured head, in those dim and damp eyes!
I suspect that we may be in for a surprise.’
‘Oh, perhaps,’ he said, smirking, and piped up his tune
As he walked on the backs in that radiant June
And his song, though outrageous to morals and right,
Was full-hearted and sung with an air of delight.
‘I have suffered for years at my infamous books,
I have eaten the food of inedible cooks.
I have lived in cold rooms, I have worked night & day,
But at long last my labours are starting to pay,
‘Because I did it all for the succulent cash,
Which at Goldman or Barclays they joyfully splash.
I’ll be splashing it too, I’ll be having a ball,
I shall buy up the chapel and knock down the hall.
‘I shall have my revenge, I don’t care what I do!
I shall sell drugs and weapons and pit bulls and glue.
I shall move cash about, I shall take the cash home,
I shall chortle and laugh in the dollary gloam.
You can say that my essays are not worth a damn;
Tutor, how you shall wish to be rich as I am!
Oh, those will be the days, oh, that will be the life:
All the sins that I like will be totally rife.’
‘What a horrible song!’ I exclaimed. ‘Are you mad?’
I was crossing the backs when I noticed a lad:
Don’t you know that your money can never buy joy?
Won’t you turn from your bad ways, you ill-fated boy?’
‘Oh, you foolish old man!’ he said with a guffaw.
‘I respect no such qualms, I respect no such law.
If it’s true that I can’t buy content, which I doubt,
Well I guess when I’m rich I shall quickly find out.’
‘It will be far too late,’ I began, but he snort-
Ed and sadly, perforce, my reproach I abort-
Ed. He danced on the bridge with rude gestures and cried
In his joy and his greed and his carefree young pride.
‘Come on, sing with me, friends!’ he called out in his glee.
‘Sing along, sing the praises of pounds, shillings, p.!
We’ll be bankers and traders and richer than tsars;
We’ll have watches and women and oysters and cars.’
To my shock then I saw that all over the wave
Of the Cam men had joined in the song of the knave,
And they sang out with joy in that radiant June
To these reprobate words and this very bad tune:
‘You can mark my exams, you can give me a third
I’ll be snorting cocaine, I’ll be free as a bird.
Oh, those will be the days, oh, that will be the life:
In a closet seducing the boss’s third wife.’
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