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The Robbers Take Over

By Jessie Seigel / January 26, 2025



The quote above is from Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial By Jury


Dear Readers,

Last Tuesday, I broke my writing wrist. Surgery tomorrow. I am, left-handed, hunt and pecking this--not for sympathy--but to let you know that for a while my articles may be a bit shorter with less substantive back-up to support the opinions. This does not mean that I am not paying attention, and I hope soon to be back to a full-brained, 10-fingered approach.


In the meantime, today I offer the words of "The Robbers' Song" from the 1938 musical Knickerbocker Holiday (Maxwell Anderson--book and lyrics; Kurt Weill--music) as my comment on the newly installed regime of Trump, his robber baron cronies, his executive orders, and his wholesale pardon of his brown shirts:


When first men fled from Eden fair

And spread upon the ground

The honest men were much annoyed

By thieves that hung around

They stole the horses from the barns

They stole the eggs and hams

Made inroads on the cattle and

Among the sheep and lambs


And so the honest men sat down

Around a pot of ale

And made a law that all the thieves

Should be confined in jail

Whereat the thieves were all confined

Behind those dismal bars

So honest men could walk abroad

To businesses or to wars


But then there was a clever thief

Who up and said, said he

"The honest men have grown so few

So numerous are we

That if we band together now

Against the honest men

The honest men will go to jail

And we'll go free again"


So then the thieves and robbers rose

By twos and threes and fours

And put the honest men away

Behind those clanging doors

And since that time it has obtained

And will obtain no doubt

The honest men sit in the jails

The robbers, they are out


The Robbers' Song from Knickerbocker Holiday, 1938


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1 comentario


Marty Aufhauser
27 ene

I wish for you a quick recovery after successful surgery 😍

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