Coffee Just To Think (Album Version)

Baez House of the Rising Sun

With apologies to Tony Orlando and the writers of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown, we’ve taken the liberty of writing our own musical take on what the Staten Island vigilantes are doing. Sing along with Friend of Streetsblog, The Speeders.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon

The lyrics speak for themselves (Rupert Murdoch is the guy with the expensive apartment):

I only have a job cause a rich man hired me
To write about the need for bike lanes
I asked that rich man if there was some other policy
That we could write about instead.

I thought about poverty, and police brutality
I told him that the rent is too high
But the rich man smiled and said he wasn’t interested
Said someone else should take up that fight.

That’s how it is
The guy who pays the piper
He’s the one who calls the tune

And if you can’t pay
You can shimmy around
until you find another tycoon. 

I once worked for a rich guy who loved the cops
Said that they could do nothing wrong
Even when the videos showed them busting chops
He would always sing the same song

CHORUS
That’s how it is
The guy with the money 
Gets to tell the world how he thinks

If you don’t like it
Let me tell you honey
Get yourself a truck that says Brinks.

BRIDGE
Maybe you wonder why you’re so uninformed
It’s not cause there’s no freedom to write
But you should always ask how opinions are formed
And who’s the one with a birthright? (RIGHT JIMMY)

VERSE INSTRUM

I worked for another mogul who only cared about 
The value of his Fifth Avenue home
So if a panhandler appeared anywhere on the East Side
We’d say it was the fall of Rome.

CHORUS
That’s how it is
We got freedom of the press
But only if you own one yourself

If there are issues
You think should be covered
You’d better start ringing doorbells

I knew a guy who wrote all about the problems
that came beacuse we do so much mining
He brought the story to the daily paper
The editor said,   Son you must be jokin?

CHORUS
That’s how that story
Never made it out
The paper knew who buttered its bread

What can you do
When the truth is hidden
By those who authorize what is read

BRIDGE
Maybe you wonder why you’re so uninformed
It’s not  cause there’s no freedom to write
But you should always ask how opinions are formed
And who’s the one with a birthright?

I only have a job cause a rich man hired me
To champion new cycling routes
He said he didn’t care about any othe problems.
But he never wore no one else’s boots

CHORUS
That’s how it is
When you have job
You do what it is that they want

Maybe it’s bike lanes
Maybe ondo prices
You listen to the big commandant

Gersh Kuntzman

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