The author sheet identifies a performance on That Was the Week That Was on April 27, 1965. The lyric weighs space-program rhetoric against disasters, illness and poverty through an exaggerated narrator. Its costs and priorities belong to a historical satire, not a present-day budget report. The full twenty-six-line song is retained; the later moon-landing note is not a final verse.
We're gonna put a man on the moon --- Gloryosky!
Every taxpayer from Florida to Oregon
Says that twenty billion dollars is a bar-a-gain.
We're gonna put a man on the moon --- Leapin' lizards!
So if we can trim the budget, we will trim it,
But when it comes to space, the sky's the limit.
For floods and fires and famines we can't spare an extra quarter,
So up and down the Mississippi folks are treading water,
But still there is no doubt
That they're proud to be wiped out.
It's worth it
To put a man on the moon.
If we could spare the money, we perhaps could find the answer
To why so many people die of heart disease and cancer,
But, heck, they're glad to go.
It's worth it just to know
That the money
Will put a man on the moon.
But don't complain of empty pockets or empty pantries.
Think of all those sexy rockets sitting on their gantries.
We're proud of every orbit,
And I hope you're doing your bit
To help us land there soon.
Let's crack down on all tax dodgers
So some nut can play Buck Rogers,
When we put a man on the moon.