Friday, August 3, 2012

"Hannibal", Dan Bern

A truly fine songwriter who has never really gotten his due.  There will be more Dan Bern coming in the not too far distant future, but for now this one somehow felt particularly relevant to me.  Perhaps because I am a (deluded/delusional/Dilaudid-addled) liberal...

(Props for alliteration? It's actually palindromic alliteration, ta boot.)

Hannibal, by Dan Bern (+ lyrics)...
Let the niggers burn down nigger town
Step aside for burning and looting
But if they set foot in Beverly Hills
Time brother, brother time to start shooting

Everything everybody has in their homes
Will be taken away next week Wednesday
And everything everybody ever believed
Will be disproved next week Friday

I'm going down to Hannibal
Going down to Hannibal
Gonna buy a new suit of clothes

Hitler never hurt a soul
I read it in a book
That I finished up just this morning
I was happy and I just couldn't wait to tell the good news
To all of my dead uncles
When they tore down the Berlin wall
Everybody danced
But between what I feel and what I say
There's a thirty foot barbed wire fence

I'm going down to Hannibal
Going down to Hannibal
Gonna buy a new suit of clothes

The world is one big cosmic joke
Played on me, I hear
As soon as I leave this room
All of you are going to disappear
Time begins to bend and shift
Maybe you haven't noticed
But just the other day a man in Washington state
Admitted killing Jesus

I'm going down to Hannibal
Going down to Hannibal
Gonna buy a new suit of clothes

I'm six foot tall and 180 lbs
I can punch through a wall with my fist
But I don't understand how with just one kiss
You can wrap me around your finger
You can wrap me around your wrist

Everybody who has ever ever been alive
Is alive today in Georgia
As for the rest of us, I don't even know who we are
It's a mystery I guess

I'm going down to Hannibal
Going down to Hannibal
Gonna buy a new suit of clothes

You see, everything I know, I learned from my dad
He learned it all from his
And his dad just happened to be
Wrong about everything

I'm going down to Hannibal
I'm gonna buy a new suit of clothes
I'm going to wear three neckties
You're going to help with the bows
You're going to help with the bows
You're going to help with the bows
  

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