The Ballad of the Fifth Avenue King

Come gather 'round folks, and a story I'll tell Of a city of glass where a great man once fell Not with a sword, but a pen and a ledger In a courtroom in spring, with the world as a hedger The Fifth Avenue King, with his tower of gold Faced a jury of twelve, a story so old On an island of stone, 'neath a sky gray and hazy The whole world was watchin', and callin' him crazy. Oh, the scales of justice, they tremble and sway For the pauper and prince at the end of the day The wheel of fortune keeps turnin' around

What goes up must be brought to the ground It's a story of power, a story of pride With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. The days turned to weeks, full of whispers and doubt They talked of the payments, and who was paid out A star of the screen, and a man at the door Things the grand papers had printed before But now it was different, beneath oath and seal To make history's pages feel suddenly real And the twelve silent faces, they listened so keen To the biggest reality show ever been seen.

Oh, the scales of justice, they tremble and sway For the pauper and prince at the end of the day The wheel of fortune keeps turnin' around What goes up must be brought to the ground It's a story of power, a story of pride With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. And while the court sat, the world didn't sleep Twisters ripped through the heartland, secrets to keep Students on campus raised flags and their songs Trying to right what they saw as the wrongs From the heat in the south to the political fight

Another day's turning from darkness to light. Then the foreman he stood, with a note in his hand A silence fell over this promised, new land The cameras flashed bright, and the anchors went sober The long, tangled summer was finally over He read out the counts, thirty-four in a line A new kind of history, for your day and for mine And the king in the courtroom, he showed no surprise Just the same old defiance, alive in his eyes.