There once was a singer, old Barney McBard,
Whose voice was as rough as a wire-brush on lard.
He'd warble and wail with the grace of a goat,
But by God, every song came straight from his throat.

Now Barney, he fancied himself quite the star,
Though his pitch was as wayward as sailors in bars.
His manager, Slick Pete, with pomade in his hair,
Said, "Barney, my boy, you're a vocal nightmare!"

"Fear not," said old Slick with a glint in his eye,
"There's a newfangled gadget we simply must try.
It's called Auto-Tune, and it works like a charm,
It'll fix your bum notes without breaking an arm."

But Barney stood firm with his chin in the air,
"I'll not have my voice altered, tweaked, or repaired!
My warbling's authentic, it's genuine stuff,
If you don't like the sound, well that's just tough."

Slick Pete, he insisted, grew red in the face,
"Without Auto-Tune, you're a bloody disgrace!
Your voice is a crime, it's an assault on the ear,
It frightens small children and curdles the beer!"

But Barney just grinned and he picked up his git,
Said, "I'd rather sing poorly than not sing a bit.
My voice may be rough, and my pitch may be skew,
But at least it's all me, and it's honestly true."

So Barney went on with his off-key crusade,
Singing pubs and small clubs, never making the grade.
And one fateful night at the old Frog and Fiddle,
He croaked out a ballad that solved life's great riddle.

For there in the crowd sat a tone-deaf old crone,
Who thought Barney's voice was as sweet as her own.
They married next week in a ceremony grand,
Where they both sang their vows to the horror of all hands.

Now the moral, dear friends, of this musical tale:
True love's often deaf, and off-key to prevail.
So sing from your heart, be it tenor or croak,
For somewhere there's someone who'll get the joke.

It has long been my fate to be thought in the wrong,
And my fate it continues to be;
The wise and the wealthy still make it their song,
And the clerk and the cottar agree.
There is nothing I do, and there's nothing I say,
But some one or other thinks wrong;
And to please them I find there is no other way,
But do nothing, and still hold my tongue.

Says the free-thinking Sophist, "The times are refin'd
In sense to a wondrous degree;
Your old fashion'd faith does but fetter the mind,
And it's wrong not to seek to be free."
Says the sage Politician, "Your natural share
Of talents would raise you much higher,
Than thus to crawl on in your present low sphere,
And it's wrong in you not to aspire."

Says the Man of the World, "Your dull stoic life
Is surely deserving of blame?
You have children to care for, as well as a wife,
And it's wrong not to lay up for them."
Says the fat Gormandizer, "To eat and to drink
Is the true summum bonum of man:
Life is nothing without it, whate'er you may think,
And it's wrong not to live while you can."

Says the new made Divine, "Your old modes we reject,
Nor give ourselves trouble about them:
It is manners and dress that procure us respect,
And it's wrong to look for it without them."
Says the grave peevish Saint, in a fit of the spleen,
"Ah! me, but your manners are vile:
A parson that's blythe is a shame to be seen,
And it's wrong in you even to smile."

Says the Clown, when I tell him to do what he ought,
"Sir, whatever your character be,
To obey you in this I will never be brought,
And it's wrong to be meddling with me."
Says my Wife, when she wants this or that for the house,
"Our matters to ruin must go:
Your reading and writing is not worth a souse,
And it's wrong to neglect the house so."

Thus all judge of me by their taste or their wit,
And I'm censur'd by old and by young,
Who in one point agree, though in others they split,
That in something I'm still in the wrong.
But let them say on to the end of the song,
It shall make no impression on me:
If to differ from such be to be in the wrong,
In the wrong I hope always to be.