A Cautionary Tale

"It worried me", I told them, how the conversation steered That first and last time that we met, the night she disappeared I rather think she'd spent the evening soaking up the sauce She gazed at me through bloodshot eyes, and shaking with remorse She seemed to dwell on times gone by, she downed her glass of red Sat herself back on the stool, "Come closer in", she said You see, I'm a cast-iron liberal, the sort that no one owns With nothing you can ever call authoritarian bones Imagine, picture my surprise and visualise the shock Freedom running through me like a stick of Blackpool rock To find that maybe, possibly I'm less than I appear So listen up, my new best friend, 'cause this you gotta hear We'd started out that smoky night, the car had broken down We knew we had to make it to the other side of town They'd told us it was happenin' down in our refectory "We've got to stand together now", was what they'd said to me And we were sure, well, I was sure this was the way ahead 'Cause freedom is my middle name, as I already said They said that we'd be silencing some ancient dinosaur Who'd opened up her stupid mouth a thousand years before Why the hell, when I have worked so hard for my degree Should I hear something, anything, with which I disagree? That's why I held my banner high and prominently placed Both in defence of freedom and as arbiter of taste We shut the old dissenter down, she didn't have a chance 'Cause who can stand against a mob demanding ignorance? They told us that she mustn't speak like one of them declared Your minds will all get muddled up, your judgements be impaired It lasted less than half an hour, and then we hit the bar We threw the banners in a skip, and now we're where we are "That's not so bad", I said to her, I owed her that at least But this is no confessional and lady, I'm no priest The way it all appeared to me, too much had come to light Her eyes had trouble focusing, "You've had too much tonight" That's when she leaned the other way, I caught her as she fell "I really think you've had enough", she wasn't looking well The barman pulled the shutter down and slowly shook his head My best friend took the hint and took her bottle off to bed "Go sleep it off", I told her as she stumbled to the stairs The barman did what barmen do, looked to his own affairs "She sits here every night", he said, and each night, without fail She tells that same old story, it's a cautionary tale