Marching into this one with mock-serious reverence and a stack of ethically compromised headlines. Let’s take the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and repurpose it as a sardonic anthem for the daily ritual of informational self-flagellation. Here’s:
Onward, Morning Readers
(with apologies to Sabine Baring-Gould)
Onward, morning readers,
Marching off to doom,
Clutching daily papers
Through the coffee gloom.
Truth has called in sick again,
Facts are on the run,
Spinning in formation—
Murdoch’s kingdom come.
🎶 Onward, morning readers,
Ink upon thy hands,
Lo! the lies we’re fed with—
Printed where it stands.
Like a cult with coupons,
We obey the page,
Gospels from the business desk,
Prophets full of rage.
Weather’s just a metaphor,
Sports a holy war—
Obits serve communion
To the rich and poor.
🎶 Onward, morning readers,
Blessed be the lead,
Truth in thirty columns,
Buried past the greed.
Editorial apostles,
Letters from the lost,
War report evangelists
Counting every cost.
Crossword saints and comic scribes
Preach in black and white—
Salvation through subscription,
Censored by the night.
🎶 Onward, morning readers,
Through the smoke and spin,
Though the world is ending,
Let the news begin.