Old Nick

Virtue’s overrated when it’s making nothing happen
At least making nothing moderately interesting happen
Will you look back from your deathbed at the things you didn’t do
Because you were too eminently sensible to?
Give in to your vices, virtue is a bore

Virtue is so passive, it lets nothing in or out
The butter that you never swallow, melting in your mouth
History hates the virtuous, Nietzsche tells us so
But adores the ones who dare to make a mess across the floor
Cultivate your vices, virtue is a bore

You must act de facto to make anybody care
Create a sticky situation and you’re halfway there
Even God agrees with me, his lowlife-loving son
Said they much prefer the sinners to the dull obedient ones
Cultivate your vices, virtue is a bore

You can be right doing nothing, but it’ s like being a stopped clock
It produces more rejoicing when you’re evil then you’re not
So there’s really no excuse for not putting effort in
Get out there and, as Iggy said, find some weird sin
Cultivate your vices, virtue is a bore

Milton, when the government proposed to censor books
Said no virtue untested is ever worth two hoots
Merely testifying to a failed imagination
The feet of clay required to stay indifferent to temptation
Give in to your vices, virtue is a bore

So cultivate your vices like tiny bonsai trees
Listen to St Augustine or listen to me
But remember, I might very well be bluffing
They don’t call me Old Nick for nothing