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The Bureaucrat's Memo - (2010)
Gary Bachlund
for medium voice and piano
To the public:
Dear Friends,
I will spend your money as I want to.
I will spend your money on my friends.
I will spend your money,
On rainy days and sunny,
I will spend your money for my ends.
Lovely expense accounts!
I will charge expenses as I want to.
I will party on with all my friends.
I will send the bill on,
Just when I had my fill on
Perks that my position recommends.
And so, the budget mounts!
But what's a little cash if not allure?
Just a wee expense expenditure.
Public debt is just a numbered blur!
And each of us, a blameless bystander!
I will live above you as it should be,
I will live and lavish on my pals.
I will swim in money
That's gotten from you. Funny,
Politics makes such lovely rationales!
Fat cats and bureaucrats![ 3 pages, circa 1' 35"]
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Pelosi
The notion of bureaucrats as the modern equivalent of the aristocrats, then the commissars and other political middlemen and their political "betters" as a appointed, self-appointed or elected elite is so often tarnished by the real world acts of greed and smallness. Though one could highlight many instances from many political parties in many nations, one serves to illustrate this.
CBS News in the US published an article which reported, "Few would argue with the U.S. having a presence at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. But wait until you hear what we found about how many in Congress got all-expense paid trips to Denmark on your dime (in an article titled, "Copenhagen Summit Turned Junket?). On the same subject, CBS reported from Washington, Jan. 25, 2010, "Congress Went to Denmark, You Got the Bill." CBS cited 106 in the party, at a cost of about a million dollars. When asked about this significant expense, Ms. Pelosi basically ignored the question, proving how insignificant she believed was the public's right to know. Coupled to this were the many reports from around the world of government officials living well above the people they "serve," making the phrase, public servant, an outright lie.
The text as rhyme came quickly to mind, as I read more accounts of the perquisites which flow like a flood over elected and appointed officials, as over the many lower ranking bureaucrats whose disinterest in the ethics of spending public money approaches illegality, in my opinion, were it not for the political fact that the bureaucrats make law and regulations defining illegality, most usually to their own aggrandizement.
The "swing" tempo should be no faster than a clean enunciation of the text will allow. The form is a standard AABA.
The score for The Bureaucrat's Memo is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.
