{"id":46902,"date":"2025-09-22T12:51:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T12:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idea.membrane.com\/songwriter\/?p=46902"},"modified":"2025-09-22T18:07:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T18:07:57","slug":"the-finger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/2025\/09\/22\/the-finger\/","title":{"rendered":"The Finger"},"content":{"rendered":"

The-Finger-Best-Of.mp3<\/a>
\nThe-Finger-Best-Of.mp4<\/a>
\nThe-Finger.mp3<\/a>
\nThe-Finger.mp4<\/a>
\nThe-Finger-Unplugged-Underground-XXVI.mp3<\/a>
\nThe-Finger-Unplugged-Underground-XXVI.mp4<\/a>
\nThe-Finger-Unplugged.mp3<\/a>
\nThe-Finger-Unplugged.mp4<\/a>
\nThe-Finger-intro.mp3<\/a><\/p>\n

[Intro]
\nThe finger
\n(Will linger)<\/p>\n

[Verse 1]
\nLike a bad aftertaste
\nWon’t let it go to waste
\nGonna leave a sign
\nOf the time<\/p>\n

[Chorus]
\nThe finger
\n(Will linger)
\nAn F U
\n(Is past due)<\/p>\n

[Bridge]
\nHere’s a salute
\n(From the destitute)
\nThe finger
\n(Will linger)<\/p>\n

[Verse 2]
\nFlipping the bird
\nAt the absurd
\nIt’s about time
\nYou read between the lines<\/p>\n

[Chorus]
\nThe finger
\n(Will linger)
\nAn F U
\n(Is past due)<\/p>\n

[Bridge]
\nHere’s a salute
\n(From the destitute)
\nThe finger
\n(Will linger)<\/p>\n

[Chorus]
\nThe finger
\n(Will linger)
\nAn F U
\n(Is past due)<\/p>\n

[Bridge]
\nHere’s a salute
\n(From the destitute)
\nThe finger
\n(Will linger)<\/p>\n

[Outro]
\nThe finger
\n(Will linger)
\nAn F U
\n(Just for you)
\nTramplin’ rights
\n(Just ain’t right)
\nSee the light<\/p>\n

ABOUT THE SONG<\/p>\n

PSA:<\/strong> \u201cKilling humor isn\u2019t funny. Kill humor, kill freedom. Not so funny now, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

As an investigative journalist with decades of experience defending the First Amendment, I\u2019ve endured more than my share of danger. My life has been threatened, my family targeted. I\u2019ve been assaulted by both criminals and police, fined, arrested, jailed, and dragged through years of court battles. But never \u2014 not once \u2014 have I seen anything as alarming as what is happening today. During one period of being illegally detained, silenced, and stripped of my rights, I adopted the pseudonym Mootmute<\/em>. What is a moot mute? Well, imagine being forced into silence until your very voice becomes a moot point. If you were a town crier and the Queen cut out your tongue, how would you tell the people? If you were a writer pressed so hard that you had to invoke your Fifth Amendment rights, would you become a moot mute? That\u2019s the absurdity of censorship \u2014 to be muted into irrelevance.<\/p>\n

Much to my amusement, when under oath I would ask prosecutors what I wasn\u2019t allowed to say. Their response? They wheeled in file cabinets overflowing with papers they themselves had published, and read aloud, line by line, everything that was now forbidden speech.<\/p>\n

Anyway, that\u2019s the name \u2014 mootmute<\/em>. They tried to silence me, to turn me into a moot mute. Instead, they became my unwitting mouthpiece.<\/p>\n

At the same time I was being attacked personally, my publishing company was also targeted, along with the entities that had licensed my intellectual property. To protect the innocent, I created a new publishing company. Much like Prince, who famously changed his name to a symbol when stripped of his own, I adopted a symbol too \u2014 only mine was built from ASCII characters and represented \u201cthe finger.\u201d The irony was delicious. Every time the prosecutors wheeled in stacks of paper \u2014 their own publications \u2014 and read the forbidden words into the record, each page carried my publishing company\u2019s logo at the bottom. The very logo of defiance they were trying to erase stared back at them from their own exhibits.<\/p>\n

In addition, for added fun and a bit of legal one-upmanship, I included a copyright notice on every page: \u201cThese pages and their content may not be used without our expressed written consent. Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent allowed under the law.\u201d So in their zeal to prosecute me, they unwittingly added yet another crime to the list \u2014 publishing my work without consent, while declaring in court that no one was allowed to say what they themselves had just published.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n |
\n_ _ | _ _
\nPublishing
\n
\n <\/a> 2007-2025
\nThese pages and their content may not be used without
\nour expressed written consent.
\nViolators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent
\nallowed under the law.<\/font>
\nWelcome!<\/a>
\n<\/address>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

The Present<\/b>: The Death of the First Amendment: Trump\u2019s War on Free Speech<\/a><\/p>\n

A Call to Arms<\/strong>
\nIn protest of the ongoing assault on free speech \u2014 and in support of Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and the many journalists slaughtered around the world this year \u2014 I\u2019ve decided to return to my roots: satirical wit, where words cut sharper than swords. Long live comedy! It\u2019s time for all of us to pick up the torch and rise. Get your satire on \u2014 let\u2019s roll.<\/p>\n

PSA: \u201cKilling humor isn\u2019t funny. Kill humor, kill freedom. Not so funny now, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

From the album “Killing Humor (Isn’t Funny)<\/a>“<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The-Finger-Best-Of.mp3 The-Finger-Best-Of.mp4 The-Finger.mp3 The-Finger.mp4 The-Finger-Unplugged-Underground-XXVI.mp3 The-Finger-Unplugged-Underground-XXVI.mp4 The-Finger-Unplugged.mp3 The-Finger-Unplugged.mp4 The-Finger-intro.mp3 [Intro] The finger (Will linger) [Verse 1] Like a bad aftertaste Won’t let it go to waste Gonna leave a sign Of the time [Chorus] The finger (Will linger) An F U (Is past due) [Bridge] Here’s a salute (From the destitute) The finger (Will linger) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14,15,1],"tags":[4167],"class_list":["post-46902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daniel","category-lyrics","category-mootmute","category-uncategorized","tag-killing-humor-isnt-funny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46902"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46926,"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46902\/revisions\/46926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}