Lyrics
WILLIAM AND THE PRESIDENT
(Timothy Brickley & David Rheins)
You lived your life out in your fine new home,
til’ finally there really wasn't anybody home in your head,
and your strong lungs give up the ghost,
like William's did in his mother's house
one winter freezing night when you were President.
You turned your back while his kind died,
you turned your back while your banker friends lied
and ripped off the little old ladies who bought your father image
and then retired in obscene splendor carefully protected
by the ones they chose to replace you.
That is your legacy,
you did not smash the Communist conspiracy,
the gangsters won and it's a new world they say.
(Oh, William, I saw a man who looked like you
coming out of the Cafe Patachou and I'd forgotten you were dead.
Oh, William.)
They laid William to rest in a stone-cold church,
his lovers and family spoke thru the tears and the hurt
but all I could feel was shame,
that a country that can claim to be as great as us,
to be as kinds as us, to be as wise as us
could not - or would not - save him.
That is your legacy.
you did not smash the Communist conspiracy,
the gangsters won and it's a new world they say.
(Oh, William, I saw a man who looked like you
coming out of the Cafe Patachou and I'd forgotten you were dead.
Oh, William, but I have not forgotten.)
You lived your life out in your fine new home,
‘til finally there really wasn't anybody home in your head,
and your strong longs give up the ghost,
like William's did in his mother's house
one winter freezing year when you were President.
Copyright 1988, Timothy Brickley & David Rheins.
