"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" - Gene Pitney

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"
---------------
Gene Pitney (1941 - 2006)




        //** Lee Marvin vs. James Stewart **\\   

When Liberty Valance rode to town
the womenfolk would hide,
they'd hide.
When Liberty Valance walked around
the men would step aside.
'Cause the point of a gun was the only law
that Liberty understood.
When it came to shootin' straight and fast
---he was mighty good.

From out of the East a stranger came,
a law book in his hand, a man.
The kind of a man the West would need
to tame a troubled land.
'Cause the point of a gun was the only law
that Liberty understood.
When it came to shootin' straight and fast
---he was mighty good.

Many a man would face his gun
and many a man would fall.
The man who shot Liberty Valance,
he shot Liberty Valance.
He was the bravest of them all.

The love of a girl can make a man stay on
when he should go, stay on.
Just tryin' to build a peaceful life
where love is free to grow.
But the point of a gun was the only law
that Liberty understood.
When the final showdown came at last,
a law book was no good.

Alone and afraid she prayed
that he'd return that fateful night,
awww that night.
When nothin' she said could keep her man
from goin' out to fight.
From the moment a girl gets to be full-grown
the very first thing she learns
When two men go out to face each other
only one retur-r-r-ns!

Everyone heard two shots ring out,
a shot made Liberty fall.
The man who shot Liberty Valance,
he shot Liberty Valance.
He was the bravest of them all.

The man who shot Liberty Valance,
he shot Liberty Valance.
He was the bravest of them all.

Child Development -- by Billy Collins

Child Development
------------
Billy Collins (1941-)






As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.