Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: protest songs for the Donald’s detractors

You were invited to follow in the footsteps of Green Day and Moby and provide Donald Trump’s detractors with a protest song. Where’s Woody Guthrie when you need him, you might ask. Well, as it turns out, the Dust Bowl Troubadour was well acquainted with the Trump family. In the early Fifties Guthrie was a tenant of the Donald’s father, Fred Trump, and the literary scholar Will Kaufman has discovered lyrics he wrote at that time excoriating ‘Old Man Trump’’s racist bigotry. Billy Bragg has set the bar pretty high with his excellent reworking of that other folk icon Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’’ (‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ Back’) but Alan Millard’s Dylan-esque entry was well done too and earns him the bonus fiver. The rest take £30.

Alan Millard Come gather around, I’ve a sad tale to tell Of a bigot and bully, the bigwig from Hell With hair like a beaver’s tail plastered in gel But he’s only a flash in the pan, man, only a flash       in the pan.

He’s macho misogynist, coarse to the core, A groper and grabber of pussies galore Who claims it’s all locker room talk, nothing more, But he’s only a flash in the pan, man, only a flash       in the pan.

You Mexicans, Muslims and immigrants all, He believes he can bar you by building a wall And it won’t be like Jericho’s, destined to fall, But he’s only a flash in the pan, man, only a flash       in the pan.

He’s Putin’s prize puppet, a bolshie buffoon With the farcical face of a comic cartoon Who thinks he’s a guru yet acts like a goon, But he’s only a flash in the pan, man, only a flash       in the pan.

Bill Greenwell We’ve seen your tower in NY About as subtle as tsetse fly And the lassies shout as you grope each thigh Donald You’re A Loser [Chorus:]

When your words smell high, when your words sink low Through the ranks of yes-men you will go From the malls to the walls of Mexico Donald You’re A Loser

With your waterboards and your slaughter eyes And your private bankrupt enterprise And the stretchy tissue of your lies Donald You’re A Loser [Chorus:]

With your phoney facts and your tactless tweets And your vacuum-packaged team of cheats Each lad and lassie here repeats Donald You’re A Loser [Chorus:].

Mike Morrison O Captain! My Captain! Mark well what you       have done, Convinced the people (and yourself) that you       are It, The One. There’s more to running government than       ‘Putin’ on the Ritz And First Ladies should be diplomats behind       the teeth’n’tits. But all’s up, the die is cast, The Lord of Misrule rules; Down Pennsylvania Avenue Now steams the Ship of Fools.

O Donald! Our Donald! You self-regarding       chump — We should have voted Homer Simpson, even       Forrest Gump. Whatever were we thinking, we must have lost       the plot: You claim to be a patriot? Walt Whitman you       are not; Rather, an orange-hair-job clown, A pimped-up masquerade; You’ve Trumped the world by trumpery, The price will now be paid.

Max Gutmann (to the tune of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’) Pipelines. Pruitt. Hiring freeze. Keeping out the       refugees. Crowd size. Hand size. New press secretary’s lies. Twitter tantrums. Funky hair. Bye bye, Mr Polar       Bear. Claims ignoring evidence. Conflicts with emoluments.

A-list folks who said No Way. Silencing the EPA. Every ‘over-rated’ foe. Taxes that he’ll never show. Jared Kushner. Twitter feuds. Rich, white       nominated dudes. Russian hacks that he’ll forgive. Facts that are       alternative.

We didn’t vote for Donald. No, we didn’t choose him; we see Putin use him. We didn’t vote for Donald. Even Clinton’s better, but we didn’t get her.

Staffers clap to fool the press. Muslim visa       airport mess. Torture’s now OK with us. State department       exodus. Briefings that he just ignores. Did I mention       Twitter wars? Merrick Garland, go get lost. Build the wall and       damn the cost.

Paul Carpenter Hello Donald, our old friend, You’re tweeting in the dark again, Drafting diktats without thinking Trashing taboos without blinking, All rooted in your trademark semi-sleaze So Donald please We want the sound of silence

In restless tweets you walk alone Making fake news of your own, Giving everything a lethal twist To be lapped up by your populists Who adore your verbal shooting sprees We’re on our knees Give us the sound of silence

Your next challenge is to supply a lesson in the art of seduction in the style of the author of your choice (up to 16 lines or 150 words). Please email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 22 February.

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