Flemming the Lemming

Bend and ear and listen while I sing

A song I wrote about a lemming

Who became so misunderstood

Sent to psychotherapy

For what the government thought was his own good.

Flemming was born in 1972

He was even featured on 'Hinterland's Who's Who'

A lemming population high that year gave rise

To a government concern

Of a lemming mass suicide

The therapist said "Now Flemming it's in your lemming genes

Your population fluctuation extremes

One year you're here in numbers so astronomical

But in a couple of years a lemming sighting is

Next to impossible."

And Flemming said:

Lemmings control the rhythm and the melody

Of the animals in the tundra I don't need therapy

The artic fox and the snowy owl depend of me

Some things in nature just need to remain a mystery

Then Flemming was presented with the cold hard facts

No other animal population crashes so low so fast

On the brink of extinction every four years

Total extirpation from the arctic

Is what the government fears.

Now rumours travel swiftly in the tundra and we've heard

That every fourth year lemmings think that they're birds

In this avian delusion like a migrating flock

Off a coastline cliff, take a run for it and

Spread the lemming wings that they don't got

And Flemming said:

It seems to me that you should be the one in therapy

To suggests and to believe in such an absurdity

I am Canadian true north strong and free

Any population fluctuations in lemmings

Happen naturally

I do appreciate all this government concern

With all due respect you have so much more to learn

About the intricate relations that keep us alive

In the changing arctic tundra,

Only the strong survive.

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