King Lear's Blues

I was feelin’ down and broken-hearted

Like there was very little left for me to lose.

So I started to sing about the way it all started:

A catalogue of all of my dues.

Fell into a trance and I started to dance

And imagined myself King Lear

Alone on a heath with tremblin’ teeth

And nothing but fear to fear.

Cordelia, Cordelia, my darling daughter,

Don’t you recognize your old man?

I suffered for sure when I froze on the moor.

So give me all the sympathy you can.

“Say, Daddy,” she said. “You’re a long way from dead.

You can walk, you can talk, you can bend.

And, if you think you’ve seen the worst of it

Then no one’s told you ‘bout the end.”

The stuff that she said stuck in my head

And it wasn’t very cheerful news.

Let me get this straight: have I been tempting Fate

By wallowin’ in the Blues?

Sometimes what you think can make you sink

Till you’ve dug yourself a deep, dark hole.

And I have been such a Gloomy Gus

Things have gotten out of control.

It’s getting late and my subjects await.

I should get back to my throne.

Y’know, being a king is not a terrible thing.

A castle is a comfortable home.

And down at the pier a message appears

In a bottle floating in the brine.

It says, “If you think your story beats them all,

Then, Buddy, you ain’t heard mine.”