The Ballad of the Thirty-Four Counts

The summer heat on Manhattan stone A king of glass upon a wooden throne Twelve common souls with steady eyes Looked past the noise and past the lies Heard whispers of a long-gone storm A payment made to keep a secret warm In a hushed-up room of oak and brass A line was drawn they would not let him pass. Oh, the scales they swing and the gavels fall And a new-made truth is writ upon the wall From the highest tower to the dusty floor History's knocked on this same door before Yeah, the story turns another page

For every player on the world's wide stage. For thirty-four counts, the clerk did read A tangled web of hurried greed A ledger line, a pen stroke's cost A reputation saved and lost The cameras flash, the pundits shout Of what this means, there is no doubt A president, the first to find The law he swore to leave behind. Oh, the scales they swing and the gavels fall And a new-made truth is writ upon the wall From the highest tower to the dusty floor History's knocked on this same door before

Yeah, the story turns another page For every player on the world's wide stage. And out in the world, the news just rolls Of silicon gold and striving souls A line is drawn in southern sand While justice waits across the land The sentencing is set for mid-July Beneath a hot and heavy sky But the country holds a bated breath Arguing over life and death. Oh, the scales they swing and the gavels fall And a new-made truth is writ upon the wall From the highest tower to the dusty floor

History's knocked on this same door before Yeah, the story turns another page For every player on the world's wide stage.