I’m on the stage - this brightly lighted space,
To start to sing on it myself I’m bracing;
A mike is like an icon that I face,
But no! It is a cannon that I’m facing!

This mike and I - we hardly get along,
It doesn’t like my singing, no wonder!
If in the song I slip or go wrong,
This microphone will amplify my blunder!

Blinding lamps around the stage are flashing,
At my ribs their beams are lashing, lashing,
And the footlights piercing my feet -
And the heat... the heat... the heat...

Today my voice is very gruff and hoarse
But I can’t change the key, whatsoever...
If what I sing is insincere and false -
The mike will not correct my failed endeavor!

This bloody mike is sensitive like hell,
It hears even when I’m erring slightly,
It cares not that I’m tonight unwell -
I have to sing these hellish notes rightly!

Blinding lamps around the stage are flashing,
At my ribs their beams are lashing, lashing,
And the footlights piercing my feet -
And the heat... the heat... the heat...

Its snake-like head is turning left and right,
Its pliant neck before my mouth tenses,
And if I stop my singing it can bite! -
I have to sing until I lose my senses!

It’s not a mike - I saw its deadly sting,
It is a snake, its moves are so alarming;
I have to sing but - no! - I can’t sing!
Instead, a cobra on the stage I’m charming!

Blinding lamps around the stage are flashing,
At my ribs their beams are lashing, lashing,
And the footlights piercing my feet -
And the heat... the heat... the heat...

This mike’s a chick whose hunger’s never gone,
From me it snatches sounds, a starving bully,
Perhaps, it’s not a chick but it’s a gun -
From it one day, I guess, I’ll catch a bullet!

Again I stand against this little scamp,
What is my mike? Who can explain the matter?
It’s burning now as an icon-lamp,
Though I’m no saint - the mike is no better!

Blinding lamps around the stage are flashing,
At my ribs their beams are lashing, lashing,
And the footlights piercing my feet -
And the heat... the heat... the heat...

My melodies are simple, but in case
I start to lie or lose my honest tone,
A shadow will slap me in the face -
A long thin shadow of a silent microphone.

 
 
 
 

Blinding lamps around the stage are flashing,
At my ribs their beams are lashing, lashing,
And the footlights piercing my feet -
And the heat... the heat... the heat...