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You Can't Get Any Poorer Than Dead

from Ain't It a Pity? by Sam Steffen

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Jacob Fram
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about

A debt is owed to Ms. Flannery O'Connor for this one. "You Can't Be Any Poorer Than Dead" was, if memory serves, the original title to her second novel, which was eventually published as, "The Violent Bear It Away."

lyrics

Rich folks get—richer and richer
Sick folks get—sicker and sicker
And the gap between em gets—bigger and bigger
And the days go by—quicker and quicker
And everybody dies—sooner or later
Nobody comes out ahead
If you can’t be any richer than to know you’re alive
You can’t be any poorer than dead

Hired on Monday Tuesday I’m fired
Rent keeps getting higher and higher
Money keeps getting scarcer and scarcer
While my pantry keeps getting barer and barer
Somebody mustve made an error somewhere
Cause my own kids I can’t keep fed
I gotta remind em when they tell me they’re hungry
That you cant be any poorer than dead

Chorus

I tried to hide it but I guess its apparent
Nothing for my kids to hand down from my parents
Nothing to lose or to gain as inheritance
Save for maybe a hatred of arrogance
Last week I made out my last will and testament
And golly do you know what it said
It said you can’t be any richer than to know you’re alive
And you can’t be any poorer than dead

Chorus

Population keeps increasing
Earth’s resources are near depletion
Our furthest limits we’re near to reachin
And the brakes of progress are hardly screechin
In a schoolhouse somewhere a teacher’s teachin
This is the observable trend
You can’t be any richer than to know you’re alive
And you can’t be any poorer than dead

Chorus

World is getting warmer and warmer
Soon it’ll be perpetual summer
With an ice-cube salesman on every corner
Sellin ice cubes at a hundred and a quarter
And I’ll take ten tho I can’t afford em
But what’s just a little more debt?
When you cant be any richer than to know you’re alive
You cant be any poorer than dead

Chorus

Scientists are workin harder and harder
To make machines that’re smarter and smarter
That can kill more people cheaper and faster
That’ll lead us right to nuclear disaster
Everybody thinks that it’s power he’s after
Cause everybody wants to forget
That you can’t be any richer than to know you’re alive
And you can’t be any poorer than dead

chorus

credits

from Ain't It a Pity?, released July 31, 2016

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Sam Steffen Boise, Idaho

Sam Steffen is a Pennsylvania-bred, Boise-based singer-songwriter whose songs are the torch-wood for a new generation of folk music that has learned from the best stuff in the tradition and aims in spite of everything to keep the human spirit alive and kicking. A versatile musician and skilled finger-picker, Sam is at heart a story-teller, and a prolific one. ... more

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