The Ballad of Joseph Smith & Mitt Romney

Well, he blew into town with his hat on his head,

Nothin’ on his wagon but a big brass bed,

And before you’d know it, so I been told,

He had sixteen wives and a hatful of gold.

           

He was a man of God, so I been told,

Sixteen wives and a hatful of gold,

Never seen nothin’ like him in all of their lives,

He took all their daughters and all of their wives.

           

(Called ’em his disciples. He was a man o’ God. Mitt Romney says he was a man o’ God, and that’s good enough for me.)

He fell into a sleep, so they say,

And an angel came to him, right there as he lay,

And told a story so precious, so I’m told,

He gave it him to keep, engraved on plates of gold.

(The angel said, “These plates are precious, so you better hide ’em safe in your hat! Name’s Moroni, by the way.” That was the angel’s name: Moroni.) 

He got back into town and he told his tale,

Tried it out on the barkeep, made him a sale,

So he told it some more, people liked his narration,

And pretty soon he had a congregation.

(People love a good story.)

Sixteen wives and a hatful of gold,

People just loved the stories he told.

Not just women but their menfolk too

They loved his stories and believed they were true. 

(Nobody ever asked to see inside his hat. You don’t ask a man of God to take off his hat. Mitt Romney says it ain’t done.)

He set to buildin’ a church to consecrate,

But the police chased him right out o’ the state.

He lived like an outlaw from town to town

And wherever he went he was a man of renown.

(Got run out of town wherever he went. He was a man of renown.)

Like old Moses, he led his people from place to place,

But wherever he went folks just didn’t like his face.

Tarred and feathered in Ohio in thirty-two,

In the hoosegow in Liberty, Missouri—strange but it’s true.

In 1840, started baptizin’ the dead,

To fill out the ranks—so many people fled.

Folks started to hate him, it was beyond all reason—

In Carthage, Illinois, he was charged with treason.

Where was Moroni in his hour of need?

Where were all the ladies who had coveted his seed?

No more wives, no hangman’s gold,

Twelve good men waiting to hear the stories he told.

He was lying in the jailhouse waiting to be tried,

He was lying in the jailhouse—only God was by his side,

He was lying in the jailhouse under arrest,

When in rushed a mob, and they shot him in the chest.

(He made it to the window and as he jumped out, he called out “Oh Lord, my God!” He was a man of God.)

Where was Moroni when the mob took his life?

Where were his disciples? Who was his wife?

He was a man of God, so I been told,

With a gospel to preach and a hatful of gold.

He went out on a cart down to Potter’s Field,

Like the day he came to town, the day his fate was sealed—

And if you ask Mitt Romney, who’s this man of fame?

He’ll say to you, Joseph Smith was his name.

Some folks say, and I wish them no ill.

That America is a City on a Hill,

But I got the truth in my hat, and my hat is on fire:

It’s a city in a desert with a tabernacle choir.