I could eat alphabet soup and shit better lyrics.

The line is a deliberately crude boast: the speaker claims such effortless verbal facility that even random letters ("alphabet soup") would yield superior lyrics. It functions as hyperbolic self-confidence and as a put-down of other writers’ work, implying their lyrics are so poor that chance would outperform them. If genuinely attributable, it would also highlight the competitive, ego-driven side of professional songwriting—where wit, speed, and the ability to top rivals mattered—and the use of shock humor to puncture pretension. Without a reliable primary source, however, it is best treated as an apocryphal quip rather than a documented statement by Mercer.