It is a parody of Les Crane's 1971 spoken word recording of "Desiderata", the early 20th-century poem by Max Ehrmann.
The parody was written by Tony Hendra for National Lampoon, and was recorded for the album Radio Dinner.
Narrator Norman Rose read the "poem" and Melissa Manchester sang the song.
"Deteriorata" appeared on the lower reaches of the Billboard magazine charts for a few weeks in late 1972, peaking as high as No.
[2][3] Les Crane himself later admitted that he preferred the parody version over his Grammy-winning recording of the original poem.