The Saddest Song

Jones Screamed (by Paul A. L. Hall of paulhallart)

A poem written and later put to music in a 300 year old stable boy's room (where I was "squatting" in exchange for cleaning two four-story ancient wooden staircases) on the Left Bank of Paris near Place Monge, Early Summer of 1981.      

Little did I know at the time, my tenure there was almost at it's end.  Jaufrett was soon to return from many years' sojourn somewhere in England, giving me, on that fateful day, twelve hours to evacuate.  Good thing I hadn't attempted any artwork (which I was about to do).  I did attempt a series of drawings, now lost, In the nearby Pantheon Hotel.  But I didn't get very on that project.  

I ended up having to move from hotel to hotel, about eleven of them that summer, until I ended up in my pup tent back at the Joinville camp grounds... for a while, where I finished the drawings during a series of autumnal rainy days on a diet of canned tuna, vin ordinairre, and rolled oats fried over a mini single burner "camping gas" (Camping Gaz) stove.  But since I had to cook lying down on my side in the tent to keep dry, I called it "cramping gas".

  (c) 1987.

Mister Jones,

there has been a great depression.

There is no money anymore.

Your millions

have just vanished.

The people    

think you are

a bore.

"Get out of here,

you are useless,"

his boss said,

"let your wife

become a whore.

Jones, will you

leave the office?

Just let me

show you

to the door."

Jones screamed,

but that's 

the saddest song

I must have 

ever heard.

No, he did not

sing the music.

He didn't even

say a word.

You know,

the pressure

of today's society

has gotten

to be quite absurd

Jones screamed

but that's the saddest song

I must have ever heard.

The saddest song

The saddest song

the saddest song

I must have ever heard.

"Live each day

as it comes, my son."

The wise man

said to me.

"Oh, you may not be

a rich man

but at least

you will be free."

Jones was standing

on his pent house wall

I was standing

on the street.

I heard him

as he sang

that song,

the moment

he 

did leap.    

He only screamed

but that's the saddest song

I must have ever heard.

The saddest song

I must have ever heard.

Mister Jones, 

why did you not

give it all away

while you

had the chance?

Instead of learning

how to give it all away,

he learned

a pointless

death dance.

A man's life

sure is never in

whatever he might possess,

because the day 

Jones lost his riches,

that was the day

he

found his death.

He just screamed

but that's

the saddest song

I must have

ever heard.

The saddest song

I must have ever heard.

I heard him as he sang that song the moment he did leap.  He just screamed, but that's the saddest song I must have ever heard.  -- The saddest song I must have ever heard.  "Live each day as it comes, my Son," The wise man said to me, "You may not be a rich man but at least you will be free."  Society's frequent economic collapses are due to faith in erroneous value. I mean, you're entitled to your opinion, kid.  But that doesn't change reality.



But it was also because of the suicides of the mini-crash of '77, I think it was.  Hence it's folk-like melody reminiscent of the Slavonic bitter-sweet music of the past centuries.



Economically, though, what we've got here in December '08 is probably more like a reasonable correction: the swing of the market is generally in proportion to its size.  But on its way down to five thousand, all the amateurs who bet their retirement on false stability will have lost their shirts.  Then the pros step in and buy and the bounce back goes beyond fifteen thousand -- DOW.



Now untold numbers will find out the hard way, first hand, that the homeless die of exposure and the unknowns will sweep their carcass under the rug, too.