Comment by isostatic

"too clever constructions which feel smart at the time you come up with them"

That's the coder, not the language.

Which is more obvious what's happening.

  print ''.join('%(pre)s%(num)s %(bot)s on the wall, %(nul)s %(bot)s,\n%(tak)s\n' % (lambda c,b: {'pre':['','%s %s on the wall.\n\n' % (c,b)][abs(cmp(c,'Ninety-nine'))], 'num':c, 'nul':c.lower(), 'bot':b, 'tak':['Go to the store and buy some more... Ninety-nine %s.' % b,'Take one down, pass it around,'][abs(cmp(x,0))] })((lambda x,o: [(['Twenty','Thirty','Forty','Fifty', 'Sixty','Seventy','Eighty','Ninety'][x/10-2]+'-'+o.lower()).replace('-no more',''), o][int(x<20)])(x, ['No more','One','Two', 'Three','Four','Five','Six','Seven','Eight', 'Nine','Ten','Eleven','Twelve','Thirteen','Fourteen', 'Fifteen','Sixteen','Seventeen','Eighteen','Nineteen'][[x,x%10][int(x>=20)]]),'bottle%s of beer' % ['','s'][abs(cmp(x,1))]) for x in xrange(99,-1,-1))

Or

  my $firstline = 1;
 my @tens = qw/Ninety Eighty Seventy Sixty Fifty Forty Thirty Twenty/;
 my @teens = qw/Nineteen Eighteen Seventeen Sixteen Fifteen Fourteen Thirteen Twelve Eleven Ten/;
 my @ones = qw/Nine Eight Seven Six Five Four Three Two One/;

  sub go {
     my $num = shift;
     my $bottles = "bottles";
     if ($num eq "One") {
         $bottles = "bottle";
     }
     if ($firstline == 0) {
         print "$num $bottles of beer on the wall.\n";
         print "\n";
     }
     $firstline = 0;

     print "$num $bottles of beer on the wall, ".lc($num)." $bottles of beer,\n";
     print "Take one down, pass it around,\n";
     if ($num eq "One") {
         print "No more bottles of beer on the wall.\n";
         print "\n";
     }
 }
     
 foreach my $ten (@tens) {
     foreach my $one (@ones) {
         go("$ten-".lc($one));
     }
     go($ten);
 }
 foreach my $teen (@teens) {
     go($teen);
 }
 foreach my $one (@ones) {
     go($one);
 }
 
 print "No more bottles of beer on the wall, no more bottles of beer,\n";
 print "Go to the store and buy some more... Ninety-nine bottles of beer.\n";
 print "\n";

People can do clever things in either language, people can write clear code in either language.