The Revised History of Joseph Smith - Not by his Mother (Sung to the tune of "Oh How Lovely Was the Morning")

Bleak and ugly was the morning
Rain was coming down in pails
Joseph Smith had been out drinking
Quaffing moonshine and local ales
As he wandered home inebriate
To his knees he gently fell
And a vision induced by liquor
Arose from the depths of hell

"Joseph, if you will believe it,
I’m the father he’s the son.
As we tried to explain to Adam,
We are gods and you can be one.
Look out for a guy named Nephi,
He’ll come if he can, but look,
If he can’t I’ll send his mate Moroni,
And he’ll talk to you about a book."

Joseph ran to tell his mother,
"Mother, God appeared to me."
And his mother said, "Oh, Joseph,
Your tales will be the death of thee!"
So he went and told his father,
And his father said, "My son!
There’s some money to be made from this one.
We’ll be rich before the year is done."

"There’s no money in a vision",
Joseph reasoned with his dad.
Joseph senior then recounted
An encounter that he’d had.
"Look out for a man named Sidney,
He’s an educated man.
Sidney has a theory about Indians,
And we’ll utilise it if we can."

Sid and Joseph became Mormons,
"Wrote" a book and preached the word.
And their message won them converts
Even though it was quite absurd.
Priesthood quorums came from Sidney,
He was keen on firm control.
While for Joseph it was polygamy
That would define his prophetic role.

As the years have passed the Mormons
Have evolved and changed a lot.
Some would say this is their genius
Others think that it is a plot.
There are those who say that vision
Didn’t happen, not at all.
But the salutary lesson, surely,
Is drink comes before an upward fall.