Lyr Add: Too Much for the Whistle (Bob Clayton)

Subject: Lyr Add: TOO MUCH FOR THE WHISTLE (Bob Clayton)
From: Songster Bob
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 03:22 PM

While watching a PBS special on Ben Franklin, I noted a story and a phrase from Ben's childhood, so I went and wrote it in a song. It's political, so this might could oughta be in the BS forum-half instead of the folk-song half, though it is a song. You figure out where it belongs.

I've toyed with several tunes and settled on the best-known. Propaganda doesn't get remembered if the tune is unusual.

Here 'tis:


Too Much for the Whistle

(To the tune of "Red River Valley")

It was Ben Franklin who told it,
A tale from when he was a boy.
Bright pennies lay there in his pocket,
When he spotted a wonderful toy.
A shiny, new whistle – he bought it –
But his brothers told him with a laugh,
"You paid far too much for your whistle;
You could have had it for half."

Chorus:

Are we paying too much for our whistle?
It's the question heard all 'round the earth.
Are we paying too much for our whistle?
Is it costing us more than it's worth?


When you see a car ad on your TV,
"No interest, and no money down."
Do you rush right down then and buy one,
And drive it all over town?
Where you're joined by all of those others,
In long lines going nowhere;
Then you should think of Ben Franklin,
As you gasp for a breath of clean air.

Repeat Chorus

The president called him "a monster."
The president said, "He's a threat."
And, "We've got to invade them to save us,"
From the weapons we haven't found yet.
Our forces used "shock and awe" tactics,
We rolled over their army with ease,
And took quick control of the oil fields
We need to feed our SUVs.

Repeat Chorus



Copyright ©2003 Bob Clayton

... I have a verse about the deficit and the tax cuts, but that's a different whistle, so I've dropped it from this'n.


Bob Clayton