Thursday Lyric: Presidential Rag

For Hanukkah, my spouse got me a CD of an old favorite, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, "Together in Concert" and I was struck by how apropos this Watergate-era song is for today. Think about the scandals and the administration's failure to respond to them, and the utter wrongness of the overarching policy which the scandals support....

Presidential Rag
by Arlo Guthrie

You said you didn't know,
that the cats with the bugs were there,
and you never go along with that kind of stuff no where,
but that just isn't the point man,
that's the wrong wrong way to go,
if you didn't know about that one, well then what else don't you know?

You said that you were lied to,
well that ain't hard to see,
but you must have been fooled again by your friends across the sea,
and maybe you were fooled again by your people here at home,
because nobody could talk like you,
and know what's going on

Nobody elected your family,
and we didn't elect your friends,
no one voted for your advisors,
and nobody wants amends,
You're the one we voted for, so you must take the blame,
For handing out authority to men who are insane

You say its all fixed up now, you've got new guys on the line,
but you had better remember this while you still got the time,
Mothers still are weeping for their boys that went to war,
father still are asking what the whole damn thing was for,
and people still are hungry and people still are poor,
An honest week of work these days don't feed the kids no more,
Schools are still like prisons,
Cuz we don't learn how to live,
and everybody wants to take, nobody wants to give

Yes you will be remembered, be remembered very well,
and if I live a long life, all the stories I could tell,
Of men who are in poverty of sickness and of grief,
Hell yes, you will be remembered,
be remembered very well

You said you didn't know,
that the that the cats with the bugs were there,
You'd never go along with that kind of stuff no where
But that just isn't the point man,
That's the wrong ,wrong way to go,
You didn't know about that one,
well then what else don't you know.