Freethought Today, December 2001

"Tunes 'n 'Toons" Plays in Salt Lake City

Dan Barker and Steve Benson entertained at the opening night of the first annual Ex-Mormon General Conference, held the weekend of Oct. 5-6 in Salt Lake City--the same weekend the Mormon General Conference convened. Dan, a Foundation staffer and songwriter who is a a former minister, teamed up with Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Steve Benson, a former Mormon, to make "beautiful blasphemy" together. Dan's new "Salt Lake City Blues," a parody of "Kansas City Blues," brought the house down. (See below.)

Above, Dan and Steve at Beehive Clothing, the Mormon Church's Mormon underwear factory (as Dave Barry says, we are not making this up).

Salt Lake City Blues

This parody can be sung to "Kansas City Blues" by Wilber Harrison

I'm goin' to Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City here I come. (rpt.)
They've got some real peculiar people there, and I'm gonna meet me some.

Gonna take a handcart, take a handcart cross the plains. (rpt.)
I packed all my belongings, but they told me not to bring my brains.

Standin' on the corner of Temple and Main, (rpt.)
With my decaffeinated beverage and seventeen fiancees.

I might hear the choir. I might see the spires.
I'll do a Temple Session--feel the spirit like a fire!
Oh, Salt Lake City! Salt Lake City here I come.
I'm goin' to General Conference, my pilgrimage to Mormon-dumb.

Read the Book of Mormon. Read a chapter every day.
A burnin' in the bosom. Pay, pray and obey.
There ain't no better drug to blow my mind away.

Lookin' for a party--never seen such glum-faced girls. (rpt.)
Ask the Patriarchal Fathers why it's called "The Prozac Capital of the World."

I can't drink or smoke! I can't think or swear!
I can't wear my shorts in this funny underwear!
Oh, my heck, Salt Lake City! Why the flip am I here?
They've got such prehistoric notions, it's no wonder that they call it "Temple Square."

Parody performed at Oct. 5, 2001 Tunes 'n 'Toons