Stuck Inside of a Lexicon with the Roget's Thesaurus Blues Again

"This is nothing terrible, it's bad enough, but it's not terrible—wow, that's deep, man."

On the John Lennon Anthology box, this is titled "Satire 2." But I much prefer its unofficial title, taken from Lennon's lyrics: "Stuck Inside of a Lexicon with the Roget's Thesaurus Blues Again."

Hearing one genius savage another genius like this is, frankly, delightful. (And going out of his way to make sure his old bandmate George got hit with some collateral damage in the bargain.) I also love that Lennon's Dylan impression isn't nearly as close as nearly anyone else's in the entire world, timbre-wise, although his cadence is awfully good—but his lyrical broadside is pretty damn spot-on, even if it's more one of Dylan's earlier talking blues he's parodying and not the Blonde on Blonde classic.

The official Soviet newspaper said that temple members have protested the mindless arms race and the filthy war in Vietnam and were persecuted and finally forced to seek refuge in another country—wow, sounds like a ballad to me 

Oh man, Bangkok, Thailand, has launched an air/sea-search for a fishing boat carrying some four hundred Vietnamese refugees, the boat was towed back out to sea after arriving in Thailand, sources said because of a breakdown in communication 

Oh Lord, the boat was towed into Thai waters by a German freighter and the Thai navy, unaware that the refugees had been guaranteed a resettlement in West Germany, took the boat out to sea after providing all passengers with provision—wow, that's deep man 

The Chinese newspapers have made the first reference to the country's curtain wall poster campaign according to vice-premier Deng Xiao-Ping, and saying that the country's stable and its leaders are confident and been planting modernization programs—oh, this should get me in the Village Voice 

Deng gave his blessings to the campaign but he commented not all the opinions of the masses are carefully thought out nor can we demand that they all be correct, adding this is nothing terrible, it's bad enough, but it's not terrible 

Former president Richard Nixon, on his second trip outside the United States since his resignation, was a smiling handshaking politician again, greeting crowds outside his hotel and trying a little French, he sure as hell didn't try it on Pat Nixon 

Mr. Nixon is in Paris to sight-see and be interviewed on French television, before going on to deliver a speech in England, he'll participate in the French call-in program and said he will answer questions in Welsh—that's pretty big, Mr. N 

Oh, I'm so cynical I could just keep on doing this forever because, you know, they ain't gonna be looking in my golden bunions in a hundred years from now, they're gonna be selling my socks like Judy Garland, and I hope they get a good price, I mean, what with the inflation and the price of rice, but man, I shouldn't worry, I own all my own songs and I wrote them myself too 

I got twenty-four children, fourteen wives, three mistresses, fifty-nine accountants, one-hundred and-five lawyers, two million fans, a posting system that never fails to land me in jail, and look through my mail, perhaps have a garage sale, and you know, go save the whale, and eh, you know, get a boat and go for a sail, and, and, oh, oh, oh, how do you get out of this hell, I'm stuck inside of a lexicon with the Roget's Thesaurus blues again—sometimes I wish I was just George Harrison, you know, got all the answers, oh my God, oh my God

Also, check out his spoken intro: in true Lennon fashion, he seems to be transmogrifying the former Robert Zimmerman's surname from "Dylan" to "Diddle."

God help and breed you all.