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Beowulf
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Baba Brinkman
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Yo, listen up, I wanna say some things
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About the days of ancient Danish kings
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One of the first was a foundling
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Who flourished called Shield Shaefing
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Whose great grandson Hrothgar
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Was in charge of the Danes when this tale is told
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The tale of a mead hall harrowed
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By a terror, and a hero called Beowulf
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A massive mead hall "“ Heorot
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Hrothgar had it built
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And after he filled it with dancing and drinking
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And laughter and singing, happy people
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Yeah, but that was brief though
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There was a monster prowling on the moors
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Grendel, and for him the sound
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Of carousing was just an obnoxious roar
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Now Grendel's been called a fiend
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Cursed by God, a powerful demon
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Yeah, lots of awful things,
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And it's true that the works that he wrought were fiendish
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But these were superstitious folk,
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And yes, I mean both the Christian poet
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And the old pagan text he re-wrote
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Grendel's flesh was physical
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Now I've heard some outlandish conjectures
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From critics about how Grendel's cannibalism
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Was essentially different from the psychopathic
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Pleasures of a man like Hannibal Lecter
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One theory goes that he was the last
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Of a band of Neanderthal wretches
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Another says that he was an apparition
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The province of psychoanalysis
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Yeah, rabid secularists like me
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Wanna cut to the heart of a story
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Maybe he had some deformity
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In his eardrums, now that would be parsimony
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It doesn't matter "“ you know as well
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As I do that there's no hell
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No gods, no demons, no elves
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Delivering gifts on Noel
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And I say "Oh well"
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So what if Grendel's nature isn't clear-cut?
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All that matters here is the level
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Of fear that he brought to Heorot
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They say at night he snuck in
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Greedy and grim, and murdered thirty men
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But even if it was just three men
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Would he be any less of a demon?
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Grendel left the Spear-Danes screamin'
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And they couldn't even deal him a cut
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He just killed when he wanted and spilled so much blood
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That it left a bit of a chill on their fun
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So they prayed to their pagan gods for relief
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If only they had Jesus!
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If only they knew what we know now
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How Jesus comes to your aid when he's needed!
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Forgive me for being facetious
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It's just that divine intervention
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Was just as non-existent then
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As now as a help in a time of oppression
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What happened instead was
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That word spread to the seven seas
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To the friends and enemies of the Danes
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That Hrothgar's hall stood empty
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And it spread to the Geats, to Sweden
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To the land of Beowulf
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And him and his men donned their chain-mail coats
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And sailed for the Danish coast
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And it wasn't long before they stood
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Sea-swept, and rain-soaked
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In Hrothgar's great mead hall
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And there Beowulf made his famous boast
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He said: "Anyone who's ever seen me fight
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Knows that I've never been the type to back down
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I've suffered extremes defending the Geats
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And I've never had a match "˜til now
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But I've heard there's a fiend in your land
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A demon who has no fear of reprisal
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Who creeps in the night and eats you alive
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And threatens your mere survival
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So here's my boast: I've heard it said
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That Grendel fights with no weapons
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So I'll go toe to toe with no sword in my hand
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And no shield by my side for protection
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Yeah, hand-to-hand combat!
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Just me and the fiend in a fight to the death
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And if Grendel wins
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Well then best believe he'll be feeding tonight on my flesh!"
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Well, Hrothgrar was quite impressed
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With the strong words of this conqueror
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And he ordered a feast to be served to the Geats
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And the mead hall was soon full of drunkards
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But their comforts were soon disturbed
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By a servant of the king called Unferth
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A weaselly little flea who was eager to see
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Beowulf's pride get punctured
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"What vanity!" he cried to the crowd
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"This man lives in a fantasy
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If he thinks he can defeat
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Such a powerful enemy single-handedly
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His accomplishments are nothing
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But narcissistic non-existent nonsense
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How can you defeat a monster when you even lost to
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Your friend Breca in a swimming contest?"
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But Beowulf wasn't nonplussed
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By this obnoxious onslaught, naw
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He said: "You's a flea, and I'm the big dawg
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I scratch you off my balls with my muthafuckin' paws
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Besides, bitch, your information is wrong,
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I beat Breca and cut off the python
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Tentacles of every muthafuckin' leviathan
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That tried it on up in that quiet storm
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And anyway
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If you had any skill
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Then Grendel couldn't kill all your men
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And still go back to his den at the end and chill!"
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After that, Unferth, basically
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Well, he just shut the fuck up
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Maybe because of Beowulf's
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Gratuitous use of the word "muthafucka"
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Yeah, it's offensive language
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But come on, this is Anglo-Saxon
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You can't expect manners
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From men of action, nah, that's a plain distraction
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After his word-clash with Unferth
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Beowulf went back to the feast
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And kept on boasting out loud
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About how he was gonna tackle the beast
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And then Hrothgar went to bed
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And left the guard to Beowulf and the rest of the Geats
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And the fires burned low
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And the mead hall was soon fast asleep
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And that's when the shadow stalker
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Grendel, came greedily loping
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Down from the mountain and out of the mist
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"˜Cause he could smell fresh human meat for the gulping
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And the mead-hall was dozing
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Every single person in the place was unconscious
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Except for Beowulf
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Who lay awake in the darkness waiting for the monster
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The hall was erected as a fortress
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But Grendel just smashed the doors in
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With his massive hands and grabbed the first warrior
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In sight and viciously slashed and gored him
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Mmm, the taste of his flesh was gorgeous
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And Grendel was ready for more, just
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Itching to turn the rest of these poor
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Wretches into a pile of dismembered corpses
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So he moved like a phantom
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Over to the next man's form on the floor
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But that's when he felt a strong hand
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Clamp on to his wrist and twist back his arm
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Then Grendel felt a kind of pain
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That he never in his life had to contemplate
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Squeezed! Like by an anaconda snake
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And only one thought in his mind: don't fight, run away!
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But he was boa constricted
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Beowulf had him in a death-grip
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I mean, you know how much pain is inflicted
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Right? When your arm gets twisted?
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Well the intended victim was the predator now
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And the hall filled with the most pitiful sound
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This long, drawn-out, desperate howl
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Like: "Aaaaooooooowww!"
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And Geat warriors surrounded Grendel
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With their swords drawn and tried to stab him
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But none of them could get a blow past him
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So they swore that his skin was enchanted
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But some form of spell-casting
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So that no physical weapon could scratch him
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But what do you think the chances are
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That they just chickened out and called it magic?
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I mean, it does sound like one of those embellishments
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Invented by storytellers just
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To make Beowulf's belligerence
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And bellicose rhetoric sound like prescience
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Yeah, so his men were ineffective
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But Grendel's howls were blended
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Now with the sickening sound of ligaments
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Twisting out of position and ripping tendons
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Ow! Then his limb disconnected
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And Grendel ran back out into the mist
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And Beowulf raised the severed arm aloft
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Still held in his fist
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And the Geat warriors gathered "˜round
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Eager to see the demon flesh
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And they all agreed that, yes
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Grendel was soon gonna bleed to death
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Then they mounted the arm as a trophy
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On the wall to inspire their fire-side boasting
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And the troubadours immortalized
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Beowulf's heroic deeds in their poetry
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And I wish I could end this scene
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With the Danes and Geats on easy street
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But heroes fight demons in threes
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So, enter Angelina Jolie
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As Grendel's mother, a feminine killer
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With collagen lips and swollen breasts-s-s
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And when Beowulf confronted her
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All he really wanted was sex
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God damn it Robert Zemeckis
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Your Hollywood epic with all of it
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Marketing methods is confounding
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My honest efforts to keep this poem authentic!
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It's pathetic! All I see when I picture
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Grendel's mother, instead of a hideous monster
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Is Crispin Glover caressing his digitally-rendered
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Mom like an incestuous lover
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And I'll never recover, so forget it!
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If you want to know her actual facial features
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Ask your twelfth-grade teachers, or college professors
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They're the last gate-keepers on tradition
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Or read Seamus Heaney's version
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His verse is amazing!
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But any pop-culture interpretation
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Is subject to virtually unlimited changes
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"˜Cause if you try to please the tourists
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Then the purists get Tourette's and curse you
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And if you try to do the reverse
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Well, the tourists are known for their lack of endurance
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So who do I try to please first?
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Myself, and it usually works
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So instead of judging like jurists
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Just sit back and enjoy the experience
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And I'll go back to the story
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Actually, forget it, I'd rather just leave it
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If you really wanna know how it ends
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Well then I guess you'd better just read it
Beowulf
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