The source credits words and music to Lehrer and identifies Keith Carradine's performance in the 1992 PBS special Listen Up! Four numbered verses build toward a five-line coda. The historical satire includes dated national stereotypes, school violence and drug references; these are the song's rhetoric, not current statistics or educational advice. All forty-nine lines of this text edition are retained.
When the classroom’s packed, and the library’s shut,
And ev’ry year there’s a budget cut,
And the textbooks only keep on gettin’ dumber,
When standards seem to be on the skids,
And it gets so even the kids have kids,
And ev’ryone can hardly wait till summer --------
Then we’re in deep doodoo,
Deep, deep doodoo.
What can folks like me and you do
When the doodoo
Gets so deep? ........ and gettin’ deeper ........
When we can’t compete with the Japanese,
Or the Portuguese, or the chimpanzees,
And ev’rybody plays by diff’rent rules,
It ain’t a question of when or whether,
Any fool can put two and two together,
Unless they took new math at one of our schools.
Yes, we’re in deep doodoo,
Deep, deep doodoo.
God knows there’s plenty to do
When the doodoo
Gets so deep ........ and gettin’ deeper .......
When some schools feel like combat sectors,
With guns and gangs and metal detectors
(Remember how we felt guilty just “playin’ hooky”?)
When the school is broke, and homework’s a joke,
And the kids do booze or grass or coke,
We’ve come a long way from choc’late milk and a cookie.
And we’re in deep doodoo,
Deep, deep doodoo,
And it’s gonna take more than voodoo
‘Cause the doodoo
Is so deep ........ and gettin’ deeper .......
People keep givin’ me the same old pitch:
“If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?”
I’ve heard that all my life, and I know it by heart.
And to tell the truth, I wish I knew,
But, America, I’m askin’ you:
If you’re so rich......why ain’t you smart?
Yes, we’re in deep doodoo,
Deep, deep doodoo.
So ask yourself what can you do
When the doodoo
Gets so deep.
It’s time to look and time to leap,
There’s promises we’ve got to keep,
And as you sow, so shall you reap,
But whatever it is, it won’t be cheap,
‘Cause the doo.....doo.....is.....so.....deep!