Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it. It satisfies no normal need. I like it. It makes you thin, it makes you lean, It takes the hair right off your bean It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen. I like it.

This comic verse plays on a deliberately blunt contradiction: the speaker catalogs tobacco’s unpleasantness and harms (“dirty weed,” “satisfies no normal need,” physical deterioration) only to punctuate each complaint with the stubborn refrain “I like it.” The humor comes from the gap between rational evaluation and habitual desire, capturing how addictions and guilty pleasures persist despite clear evidence against them. Its sing-song rhyme and escalating insults mimic a folk-jingle or vaudeville-style recitation, suggesting it was meant to be memorable and performable. The poem also reflects a long tradition of satirical writing about tobacco that both condemns and indulges it, letting the refrain stand in for human irrationality.