Phil Ochs — Ten Cents a Coup

[Intro] I'll sing a song about, um, about the President, uh, what's his name, um. The guy with eighty-one percent of the people in back of him.  I mean you don't know what to believe any more 'cause the television just spews forth lies at, at such a rapid rate now, a cancerous rate, they can't control it. They can't even cover up their own tracks now, they used to be able to do that. Time out for a commercial and all. But um, they uh– I mean, there are two Americas. There's an old America which is just dying and ossifying, growing harder and collapsing. And as, and as it dies the people just get uglier and uglier. After, after they - it's true - after they assassinated Kennedy, you know, got him out of the picture - John Kennedy - they, uh, ugly Johnson comes in. They had to get someone uglier than that, so they got ugly Nixon. And Nixon had to get uglier to back him up, you know, so Spiro. So none of it's true. It's all a Madison Avenue dream, or really nightmare.  I for one don't even believe he's President. Because in order to have a President you have to have an election. In order to have an election you have to have a choice. And if you remember back to the primaries there were people running against the war, Kennedy and McCarthy, who won often, often eighty-five to ninety percent of the vote. But when it came time for the parties to pick their candidates that was totally ignored. So in point of fact there really was no election. For a man who's always wanted to be President, now that he's President he's not even President.  [Verse 1] It was a used car dealers' election And the choice was rather small The boys agreed it's the war we need So there's no President at all [Chorus] Here's to Nixon and Agnew They are the stars of the stage and screen It's not since Laurel and Hardy Have I laughed so hard I screamed [Verse 2] I thought that Johnson was the devil I thought we couldn't do no worse Now the White House stands in Disneyland This country must be under a curse [Chorus] So here's to Nixon and Agnew They are the stars of the stage and screen It's not since Laurel and Hardy Have I laughed so hard I screamed [Verse 3] I dreamed Nixon died of a suntan There was only Spiro left At his swearing in, he fell on his chin He assassinated himself [Chorus] Here's to Nixon and Agnew They are the stars of the stage and screen It's not since Laurel and Hardy Have I laughed so hard I screamed [Outro] Thank you More, more, more