Lipton’s Journal/January 26, 1955/310

When I was a kid in college I wrote “The Bodily Function Blues”^[1] but everyone was repelled by it. Secretly, I never was. Here it is:

Ah gotta pissssss
Ah gotta ur-ri-nate
Piss, ss, ss, ss, sssss

Ah gotta shit,
Ah gotta de-fe-cate
Oo oo ee oo ee oo oo

Ah gotta bleed
Ah gotta menstruate
Trickle trickle, trickle trickle.

Ah gotta eat, alimentate, etc.

Ah gotta sleep, somnambulate, etc.

Ah gotta fuck
Ah gotta cop-u-late
Too late, too late.

Oh, what am I gonna do?
I got those blues, I got those blues.
I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t shit, I can’t fuck.
Ah got those bodily function blues. Dad a de dad a.

Exit blues.

note

↑ Mailer belted out this song for his family and friends for decades. In 1995, he recorded it, and another song he wrote, “Alimony Blues,” for Don’t Quit Your Day Job Records.

[1] Mailer belted out this song for his family and friends for decades. In 1995, he recorded it, and another song he wrote, “Alimony Blues,” for Don’t Quit Your Day Job Records.

[1]