Friday, October 24, 2008

We'd be Better Off to Drop Down Dead

I'm at a law conference in South Florida today and the keynote was by an economist. While reasonable-sounding and more upbeat than most of the prognosticators, he was fairly bleak about the next 6 months. Fred Barnes spoke too and was equally gloomy (but that was about President Obama)

I honor of the current economic climate if LA Guy could be prevailed upon to print the lyrics from the bankruptcy lawyer song he performed in a U of Chicago Law School Musical. (Was it called "There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner?")

Snippets keep coming back to me while I'm watching the market tank everyday ("Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Suff'ring and Dismay!")

6 Comments:

Blogger LAGuy said...

The first version of the law school musical number was created by someone else. I rewrote it extensively, but don't have the lyric at hand. I'd have to pull out an old tape of the show and I'm not sure where mine is.

However, the first version itself was at least partially stolen from a Noel Coward song of the same name. If you want to read those lyrics, go to: http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?hid=YNBPAw7pra4%3D

1:13 PM, October 24, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I happen to have LAGuy's lyrics. Here they are:

The Bankruptcy Song
(Sung by a Bankruptcy Lawyer, exulting that work is booming in his field, while everyone else is languishing)

Verse: They're running low in Dallas/Detroit is gonna rust
Silicon Valley's slipping/Their bytes have bit the dust
They're hamstrung in the farm belt/With prices 'gainst the grain
And things are getting rotten/Upon the fruited plain
The belt is getting tighter/Down South beneath the sun
If commerce is a battle then/This must be Verdun!
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray/Misery's on its way!

Chorus: (There are) bad times just around the corner
Depression is just along the path
A drop in coin per diem, could bring an end to GM
And Ivory Soap is gonna take a bath
A spill will put the hex on both Texaco and Exxon
The wolf ain't at their door he's in their bed
So let us now be frank, there's no Tiger in their tank
They'd be better off to drop down dead

Bridge: There's a plummeting in zinc meaning Phelps is on the brink
But the miners can't get drunk with Jack Daniels in the drink
Seventh Ave. is waxing wroth over cheap Korean cloth
If the workers are on souplines they'll put Campbell's in the broth
Just hold on to what you've got at a time when most have not
When the Colonel can't sell chicken and the pushers can't sell pot
The economy is spent, which is gonna pay our rent
U.S. Steel(Substitute "AIG") was the teaser, who can guess the main event?

Chorus: There are bad times just around the corner . . .
(Instrumental dance featuring the Grim Reaper)
They'd be better off to drop down dead!

Verse: Hartford's lost assurance/Akron's blown its spare
Carolina's finished/Vancouver's only fair
Maine has lost its timber/And Nashville's gone offkey
If farmers won't stop gowing crops/Nebraska corn is free
They're whining up in Napa/And quaking down in Frisco
And Hollywood's not been so bad since death was dealt to disco
Hooray, Hooray, Hooray/Suffering and dismay!

Verse: There are bad times just around the corner
Chaos lurks around the bend
Now Cuisinart is chopped up and Sudafed is stopped up
And Pampers may be coming to an end
No quarter also no buck is given Sears and Robuck
I'll say it still though often it's been said
The Barbies and their Kennies can't save their J.C. Penneys
They'd be better off to drop down dead

Coda: Not a pretty story/Fiscally quite gory/Land of faded glory/Just keep voting Tory!
They'd be better off to drop down dead.

7:56 PM, October 25, 2008  
Blogger LAGuy said...

No no no. You don't replace "U.S. Steel" with "AIG." We need four syllables. How about "Lehman Brothers"?

2:29 AM, October 26, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

U.S. Steel is three syllables when I count it. How do you count it?

9:34 PM, October 26, 2008  
Blogger LAGuy said...

As sung, it's U.S. Ste-el.

The line has a rhythm:

U. S. Ste el

Was the teas er

Who can guess the

Main e vent

(It does end on the masculine rhyme)

11:39 AM, October 27, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gee-ee whiz.

7:40 PM, October 28, 2008  

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