Three years before I was born ---
In nineteen sixty
Before I could even stick out my tongue
(in a somewhat nifty, nefarious) Act, they tore it out.

- The tongue, James, the tongue.

I could hear them argue from heaven
And almost didn’t come down.

In their black robes and white wigs
They talked about untouchable pigs
I say, ISA, I heard them say
For any I say after eleven, another one chimed
Or seven, for this or that reason, the other one rhymed

The tongue is just a figure of speech.
It is legislature. It is human nature.
We are doing it to prevent future grime
From coating the surface of the Malaysian preface
We are doing it to prevent future crime.

Understand this. I say in English.
To keep the streets of Malaysia clean
In nineteen sixty before I could open
My mouth and say the sky is falling down

They plucked away
Our candy pink tongues
And the cry for four freedoms
Died like Roosevelt in our lungs.