Bank of America, How Are You? (A song for the Great Recession)
I've posted a new video for a song I wrote to give Bank of America credit that is due for helping to create a great recession for us all. The video is illustrated with photos from the Great Depression. My tribute to Bank of America with images of the time when it was born:
(Click the title below to open a page for the YouTube video. If you like the song, please share.)
Bank of America, How Are You?
Running out of money in the U.S.
Illinois Central Bank just had to fold.
Fifteen banks and fifteen jobless bankers,
Sold their souls for Goldman's sacks of gold.
All along this downward odyssey,
The banks pulled out of Muskogee,
And repossessed their houses, farms and fields.
Blighting towns that have no names,
Front yards full of short-sale signs
Become graveyards full of rusted automobiles.
CHORUS:
Bank of America, how are you?
I'm sure you're fine. I'm without a home.
You broke me just like Katrina broke New Orleans
'Cause you charge five-hundred bucks for a five-buck loan.
Getting bank deals is like livin' in a card house --
So many points on their loans, I can't score.
Lose my home while I am on the toilet;
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
As the bank now pulls our quarters,
and our sons play engineer;
That's the trouble with livin' in a house on wheels.
Mother, with our babe asleep,
Is rockin' to the gentle beat,
For the rhythm of the road is all she feels.
CHORUS
Nighttime for the homeless in the U.S.
Changing homes from Maine to Tennessee.
I lost mine when the bank came by this morning,
But the laugh's on them 'cause it rolled on down to the sea.
All my old town and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
Now that I have nothing left to lose.
Though my home is underwater now,
I'm bailing out my bank somehow,
'Cause we're all singing the bailout banker blues.
Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me? I'm your native son.
On the train they call The Dreamline of America,
You'll be out five-hundred grand when the day is done.