Lyrics by Ted Greene

A Hippo Is A Beast Of Terrifying Lore.
A Vengeful Creature Hell-Bent
On Settling The Score.
Trampling Feet And Tusks That Gore,
Because Of Him,
Countless Souls Are Here No More.

The Slightest Provocation He Takes Offense
And Protects His Watery Den
With Fierce Defense.
Crushing Jaws, His Only Eloquence.

Tiny Eyes, He Has Poor Sight.
Completely Color Blind,
For Him Everything Is Black And White.

Let ‘Bygones Be Bygones’
A Wise Old Song.
But As For The Hippo;
He Rights Every Wrong.

There Was A Fine Painter
Of Seascapes, Named McGuffin.
He Climbed A High Cliff
Over The Sea,
And He Was A'huffin.
Far Below, The Waters Boiled And Raged Like A Wild Roughin’.

Suddenly, Up Over The Cliff Shot
A Flock Of Puffin.
They Slammed Into Him,
And Knocked Out His Stuffin’.

Over The Edge He Went Into The Great Blue Nothin’.
A Thousand Feet Down,
I'm Not Bluffin’.
Buried At Sea.
No Need For A Cuffin’.

Ned Was A Collector Of Heads.
Of Things Once Living, Now Dead.

Alone At Night, At His Homestead.
He Was Filled With Cold Dread.
He Told His Friends,
He Heard The Growl Of Animals, Unfed.
So He Sat Up All Night, And Never Went To Bed.

The Next Morning They Found Him,
Ripped And Torn, Bloody Red,
Lifeless Beneath His Collection Of Heads.
The Beast’s Shining Eyes Looked Very, Undead.

How He Died Was Left, Unsaid.

Cave Man Dreams

I Wish To Hunt The Mas-Te-Don.
That Mountain Of Hair And Braun.
But They’re Not Here, They’re Long Gone.

So I Put My Caveman War Paint On.
And Sit In The Frozen Forest Of The Yukon.

Slow And Sad, I Bang A Gong.
And Mourn The Day, Some Moron.
Killed The Very Last Mas-Te-Don!

Turn, turn, turn; listen to the business hum.

Some work for gold, some for glory, and some to climb the next rung.

They blow their own horn and are never mum.

But there are some like you who march to a quiet drum.

While others sing their own praises, you hold your tongue.

A silent cog, a quiet strength, and your vital efforts go unsung.

Oh, hidden gem, who could calculate your value, an immense sum.

So, I toast you with the sweetest rum;

noble, smart, and humble, you really are quiet a plum.

TIME


It seems like only yesterday,
I had such dreams, my plans daring, a vast array.
The things I’d do, the dragons I’d slay.
The world was mine to mold, my hunk of clay.

With time my ally, stretched forever the future, day after day.
So I never missed a chance to sing and play,
and never the thought, “I’d Better make hay”.

But time flies like a swift ballet,
One day I spun around, and I was old and gray.
To faint and frail for the fight and fray.

And time once my ally,
is now a terrible hound that howls and bays.
“You’ve lost your chance, it’s no longer your day!”

So I sit alone, resigned to come what may.
The past flits past and on my face a faint smile betrays,
my happy youth, and once so free like a castaway,
for every dog really does, have his day.

“The Last Drink”

I have found the universe filled with mystery and awe,
but upon it’s stony brow is written one simple law;
“From tiny missteps grow terrible flaws.”
And so it is with those three wicked spirits,
beer, wine, and Lick-kaw’.

One day a Raven Of Fate flew before me as it shrieked and cawed.
“You must be tested,” it hissed,
and clutched my first drink in its ebony claws.
What happened next? I neither knew nor foresaw.
As luck would have it, I drew the short straw.
Another drink, followed another, as a strange wild thirst did gnaw.
Freedom gone, I was gripped in Addiction’s iron jaws.

So I learned the story of addiction, the story of loss.
The first thing to go, my self-respect I tossed.
My job soon followed and booze became my new boss.
Restless as a spirit, my home was a loss.
I roamed from bar to bar, the city I crisscrossed,
a rolling stone, gathers no moss.
The gray sky my ceiling, the gutter my bed,
I lay in a heap like so much dross.
My only joy in life, this sickening sauce.

The last things to go, was what I had loved most,
family and friends, the ones I held close,
but they looked at me like they just saw a ghost.
So I drove them away with my black mood, so morose.
The battle lost, and with my last bottle “to death,” I toast.

I sat there so alone on the edge of the brink,
all about me the world black as Indian ink.
Towering buildings hemmed me in like the walls of a great clink.
Then appeared the first ray of dawn light, a rosy pink,
and in that infant light I start to think.
Away like magic my memories slink.
I remember these buildings, these streets,
my life before I started to sink.
How much I’ve lost, How much I was,
before booze made my life stink.

There at the edge of that long dark night,
I thought about how I went wrong,
when before everything had been so right.
My strong resolve, to seek out others to face this withering blight,
And together, win this bloody fight.

I leaped up from the gutter, my heart and mind now in sync.
Suddenly, everything had changed in less than a blink.
And I knew in my heart, I had my last drink.

Looking back on that night, I’ve had my share of troubles.
I found just how much I need the help of others,
no man’s an island, I can’t live in a bubble.
A couple times I’ve fallen,
but there’s always a helping hand, to pull me out of the rubble.
Most of all, I’ve grown to value my family and friends,
with them at my side, all my sorrows are halved,
all my happiness doubled.