Lyrics

Filthy Rich

Now listen very closely
‘cause I’ll only say this twice.
It’s my penultimatum
and it isn’t very nice.
I passed a threatening note
to the automated teller.
I’m as poor as a pauper
and as rich as Rockefeller.

They trephinated Trotsky
and they hemlocked Socrates.
Defenestrated Jezebel
and poisoned Hercules.
They shot Lincoln and the Kennedys
and Martin Luther King,
the tsar and the tsarina,
and all of their offspring.

Old Sparky fried the Rosenbergs
and Sacco and Vanzetti.
While the prisoners of ISIS
were beheaded by machete.
From the gallows to the guillotine,
from the snakepit to the stake,
the monopoly on violence
is the icing on the cake.

They fed us to the lions and
they fed us to the sharks.
They smothered Desdemona
and ignited Joan of Arc.
They stoned us and they throttled us
and took away our breath,
while fervently believing
in death after death.

They sold us down the river
and they left us in the lurch
in the name of their country
or the name of their church.
They stabbed us in the back
and they left us in the ditch.
We may be dirt poor,
but at least we’re filthy rich.

Repeated lies become the truth,
said Vladimir Ilyich,
and that is why the filthy poor
aspire to be dirt rich.
The hobo robber barons and
Rodeo Drive street urchins
wear the Emperor’s new clothes,
those undressed trans-Vestal virgins.

The victors and the victims
of the Lord High Executioner.
Apostles and apostates
of the crucifix of Lucifer.
The warlords and their henchmen.
The overlords and underlings.
The pundits and the sophists who
know nothing about everything.

At every human sacrifice
and burning of the witch,
please ask yourself this question
just before they flip the switch.
Is it a privilege or a curse?
Is it a blessing or a bitch?
Is it for better or for worse
to be dirt poor but filthy rich?