Decency and Honesty and Truth (Brown, Bear)

Merry Bear

DECENCY AND HONESTY AND TRUTH

• Lyrics by (mostly) Terry “The Bear” Brown
• and (not so much) Merry Bear.
• Music by Merry Bear.

Three children born, their single mother
Molested as a child
And made a little wild

• By her father and her brother
• Ran away to end up in Duluth
  That’s where this teen gave birth
  To Decency and Honesty and Truth

A son of wealthy Right-wing Christians
A daughter of the South
They dared to run a mouth

• Said that she deserved affliction
• In an alley, with her blood, this youth
  She wrote their names on them
  On Decency and Honesty and Truth

She clutched them in her dying bosom
Alone and in the cold
Three babies she did hold

• Though she knew that she would lose ’em
• No one heard the sobbing, dying youth
  And no one heard the babes
  Named Decency and Honesty and Truth

And no one paid attention too long
A blip upon the news
They said she paid her dues

• No one sang a jubilee song
• Rev’lers shunned the unknown, poor uncouth
  Three graves beside her too
  Marked Decency and Honesty and Truth

The politicians like to holler
And preachers like to yell
“The world has gone to Hell!”

• They’re all hot beneath the collar
• Hear the Earth, she heaves a mighty sigh
  Her glaciers melt away
  And so I hope we’re all prepared to die

For ages we have begged for answers
For all that we’ve achieved
For all that we have grieved

• For the lovers and the dancers
• Struggling on with every nail and tooth
  So seldom was there found
  Much decency or honesty or truth

They’ve slipped away fore’er
Young Decency and Honesty and Truth