Tobacco is a Dirty Weed
Tobacco is a dirty weed,
I like it.
It satisfies no normal need,
I like it.
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right off your bean.
It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen.
I like it.
Commentary
Thans to readers Bob Williams and Tim Reynolds for pointing out that Adams was riffing off the following Graham Lee Hemminger poem:
Hemminger in turn seems to have been poking fun at the far more solemn (and, as far as I can find out, anonymous) verse:
Tobacco is a filthy weed
That from the devil doth proceed,
That drains your purse,
That burns your clothes,
That makes a chimney of your nose.
However I still feel that while Hemminger’s poem was merely an amusing parody, Adams’s had some undefinable element to it that lent it a touch of steel, and which makes it far more trenchant than it appears at first glance.
— Martin