The Spoonbill Generator

If you can hold a tune, when all around [TG]

Go growling on, a tritone from the tonic [Roland]

If you can make sweet music from the sound [TG]

That gargles forth from gadgets electronic [Roland]

If you can keep to seven-thirteen time [TG]

Against a throbbing beat, primeval, brutal, [Roland]

And get the very blankest verse to rhyme [TG]

And force the very smallest fife to tootle [Roland]

If you can scream, and make your scream a song [TG]

For which the very Muses might do battle [Roland]

If you can hold your embouchure so long [TG]

That e'en the best conductors start to Rattle [Roland]

If you can cause each note to yield its charms [TG]

Throughout the dread eleventh-hour rehearsal [Roland]

If you can cope with Bartok, Berg and Brahms [TG]

And know your Palestrina from your Purcell [Roland]

If you can hum that tune from Butterfly [TG]

While whistling that chorus from Aida [Roland]

And reach with your top C an utter high [TG]

And more applause than follows any Lieder [Roland]

If you can make the Albert Hall resound [TG]

With bellows of 'Encore!' from every quarter [Roland]

But do not let your soul by praise be bound [TG]

Or – what is worse – you'll be a man, my daughter [Roland]