My favorite arson blues was composed for my working draft of the Housing and Neighborhood Organizing Songbook after I remarked that there was lots of arson in evidence but no songs:

Original Words & Music by Paul Emery © 1982
Adapted by Charlie Ipcar - 1993

Arson?s Just Business


Baby, you won?t believe it,
How someone could come around;
Take our house,
Just burn it down;
Old landlord?s standing by the fire trucks,
Over there with the police,
Over here the kids are standing in a puddle,
Hell, it?s nighttime in the streets.

They all say they?re sorry,
But there?s nothing they can do;
Happens all the time, LA, Chicago,
New York, it?s nothing new;
They all got insurance
And that?s the lucky thing;
Ain?t no way to catch them bastards,
Come and done this thing.

Chorus:

They?ll burn down the whole damn city,
Get paid their share;
What the hell?s the difference, ain?t no reason
For us to be staying here;
Ain?t no jobs left,
Just booze, junkies and welfare;
Arson?s just business,
Business, it don?t care.

You know, this building,
Wasn?t worth much anyway;
You remember how the wind blew, Baby,
How the curtains you put up would sway?
Got so cold, sometimes,
We?d all sleep together in one bed;
Burnt up everything we had,
Thank God, no one?s dead.

When you come home, Baby,
We can drive on down the street;
Of course, by then all the ashes
Will be covered up with weeds;
The thing is, it really scares me,
All the hope and love that burnt up there;
Thirty years of our life,
We tried to raise a family there...

The songwriter, Paul Emery of Michigan whose house did catch fire and whose vintage Gibson guitar recovered from extensive third degree burns, had this to say about his song:


Losing your place is bad when it?s an accident but it?s especially hard to deal with if you know some fucker?s got paid to do it and that he?s just some minor pawn in the economic arrangement that?s responsible for you standing in the street.

Warm regards,
Landlady's Daughter