Spike Milligan

Standing Room Only

Standing Room Only - meaning Summary

Overcrowded Afterlife Complaint

Spike Milligan's short poem jokes about overpopulation by imagining Heaven full to bursting and Heaven's residents asking newcomers to go to Hell. The speaker frames population growth as a crowding problem so acute that even the afterlife lacks space. The poem compresses a social concern into a comic, irreverent image, using a conversational narrator to turn a serious topic into darkly playful satire.

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This population explosion Said Peter to St. Paul Is really getting far too much Just look at the crowd in the hall. Even here, in Heaven There isn't any room I think the world could do with less Much less fruit in the womb. Thus Heaven is overcrowded The numbers are starting to tell So when the next lot knock at the gates Tell 'em to 'Go to Hell'.