And He spoke a parable to them: "Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? (Luke 6:39 NKJV)

I am so bored of church. I am so bored in church. I am so bored of all the seeker-sensitive claptrap.

I’ve been to hundreds of churches—homogenised, cloned zombies, the walking dead—mostly populated by grandmothers, children, asylum seekers, strange men in strange jumpers, unmarried professional women, divorcees, deviants in disguise, and a few cool, twiggy-armed boys with plooks and guitars.

This happened because of the strange symbiotic atmosphere between the hipster talker and the unchallenged dwindlers—now all kidding themselves with the language of the “celebration worship experience” and stirred-up revivals. Nonsense!

Yes, nonsense is what we were left with when we traded the straight-talk preach of the I AM for the inclusive, culturally inoffensive language of compromised, cowardly coolness—and then dressed it all up in countdown technology. That one hour of dumbness, peppered with a little “talk,” spread like cancer through our spirit-being.

It is all too late now. I tell you, even if you “break the bloody glass, you won’t hold up the weather.” Damp darkness is upon us; the dwindlers of the night are dying.

PERFORMANCE TIPS |

Delivery & Rhythm: Perform to the same skirl and gallop as Louis MacNeice’s “Bagpipe Music.” Maintain its breathless, percussive nonsense-poem cadence.

Theme Shift: MacNeice’s original lamented Highland cultural decline in the 1930s. Your piece targets the church’s spiritual decimation by modern slickness. Keep that edge front-and-centre.

Tone: Sarcastic, urgent, unapologetic. Let each absurd detail land like a jab, but let the final lines drop into a dead-serious warning.

Audience Shock: ???? “shall supersede this rubbish.” Deliver that line as a prophetic overturning—sharp, deliberate, unavoidable.

Form: Treat the legacy church as a poem riddled with “bad feminine rhymes.” Hammer that metaphor home by exaggerating every off-rhyme and clashing image.

https://youtu.be/n72XebBaMeI?

[HOOK]
It’s fine, it’s cool, it’s awesome,
It’s national prayer at Wembley!
[VERSE 1]
It’s brill-i-ant, resil-i-ent,
It’s project name and vision,
It’s clueless, bookless internet—
A clicking mouse decision.
[HOOK]
It’s fine, it’s cool, it’s awesome,
It’s national prayer at Wembley!
[VERSE 2]
It’s empty, harmless, fluffy,
It’s flashing lights, it’s coffee,
It’s donuts, clubs, and T-shirts,
It’s a bowl of chocolate toffees.
[HOOK]
It’s hands in pockets up the front, and
It’s a “Sorry if I’m preachy,”
[VERSE 3]
It’s hands in pockets up the front, and
It’s a “Sorry if I’m preachy,”
It’s coloured purple corduroy,
A plastic fruit that’s not quite peachy.
[HOOK]
It’s fine, it’s cool, it’s awesome,
It’s national prayer at Wembley!
[VERSE 4]
It’s the white of Converse trainers,
It’s a flat and floppy canvas,
It’s smoke, and jokes, and a trail of dopes
With no evidence to hang us!
[HOOK – VARIATION]
Break the glass, break the glass—
But you won’t hold up the weather!
[VERSE 5]
It’s dead, it’s dying, lying,
It’s self-deception and it’s passing—
It’s de-trained men at Auschwitz,
All lined up for the gassing.
[HOOK – FINAL]
It’s fine, it’s cool, it’s awesome,
It’s national prayer at Wembley!
Break the glass, break the glass—
But you won’t hold up the weather!

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The simple believes every word, but the prudent considers well his steps. (Proverbs 14:15 NKJV)

Where there is no counsel, the people fall; But in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. ( Proverbs 11:14 NKJV)

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. (Proverbs 27:6 NKJV)

I have bathed in the glittering visions

Of many a bluster-blower, and

Ignored all the warning noises

That bounced off the walls of my

Well-bullied ‘knower.’

Yes, I’ve chewed on the verbalised goo, my friends, and

Gulped down the plunk, plink, and fizz,

Singing:

“When it sounds far too good to

Be true, me boys, then

It most likely and

Probably is!”

I have wedded the big blow-up doll, my friends,

Embedded with ‘come to bed’ eyes, and

Danced on the deck of the Hesperus

Financed by a large pack of lies.

Yes, I’ve sucked up their green snots of flu, my friends, and

Imbibed on their pale pots of piss

(and that’s what it is),

Singing:

“When it sounds far too good to

Be true, me boys, then

It most likely and

Probably is!”

So—no more to the fair or the fleecing,

No more to those high hills of hope,

For the man that is constantly bitten, my friends,

Is a fool and a festering dope!

Yes, I’m done with the hugs and the muggings, and

I’m done with sweet fellowship’s kiss—

For:

“When it sounds far too good to

Be true, me boys, then

It most likely and

Probably is!

Yes,

When it sounds far

Too good to be true, me boys—

Know for sure that it

Probably is!”

© 2012 Victor Robert Farrell AKA Purple Robert All Rights Reserved

Support the show

I have bathed in the glittering visions

Of many a bluster-blower, and

Ignored all the warning noises

That bounced off the walls of my

Well-bullied ‘knower.’

Yes, I’ve chewed on the verbalised goo, my friends, and

Gulped down the plunk, plink, and fizz,

Singing:

“When it sounds far too good to

Be true, me boys, then

It most likely and

Probably is!”

I have wedded the big blow-up doll, my friends,

Embedded with ‘come to bed’ eyes, and

Danced on the deck of the Hesperus

Financed by a large pack of lies.

Yes, I’ve sucked up their green snots of flu, my friends, and

Imbibed on their pale pots of piss

(and that’s what it is),

Singing:

“When it sounds far too good to

Be true, me boys, then

It most likely and

Probably is!”

So—no more to the fair or the fleecing,

No more to those high hills of hope,

For the man that is constantly bitten, my friends,

Is a fool and a festering dope!

Yes, I’m done with the hugs and the muggings, and

I’m done with sweet fellowship’s kiss—

For:

“When it sounds far too good to

Be true, me boys, then

It most likely and

Probably is!

Yes,

When it sounds far

Too good to be true, me boys—

Know for sure that it

Probably is!”

© 2012 Victor Robert Farrell AKA Purple Robert ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Support the show