The Wreck of the Enron Fitzgerald

Written and (c) 2002 by Stephen V Cole with apologies to Gordon Lightfoot

The Legend lives on from the SEC on down
of the scandal they call Enronscrewedme.
The stink it is said, rivals that of the dead
when the skies of the market turn gloomy.
While the load of debt soars, twenty-nine billion bucks more,
than the whole corporation weighs empty,
The business it's said is now deader than dead,
when the debts of the market come early.

Enron was the pride of America's snide
insiders who trade in the business.
As the big traders go, it was bigger than most,
with a board and accountants with finesse.
Concluding some terms, with a couple of gas firms,
they gambled in telecom bandwidth,
And later that year when the deal hit the tank
would it be the whole loss they'd be caught with?

The buzz in the press made a tattle tale sound
and the rumors flew up to the ceilin'.
And every man knew as the chairman did too
'twas the witch of bankruptcy come stealin'.
The buyout came late and the profit had to wait,
when the third quarter re-ports came crashin'.
When October came it was India in pain,
In the face of a balance sheet slashin'.

When 401s fell, the whole board sent a note saying
employees, you cannot just cash out.
In November and then, a partnership caved in,
and the chairman said "we need a bailout".
The Chairman wired in, he had lawyers coming in
and the Board it was true was in peril.
And later that night, when his stock sank out of sight,
came the wreck of the Enron Fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the friends of Bush go
when bankruptcy turns dollars to pennies?
The pundits all said, they'd have gotten ahead,
if they'd got 15 billion from Cheney.
They might have sold out or have been subsidized.
They may have gone broke making payoffs.
All that remains are the faces and the names,
of employees now facing huge layoffs.

Wall Street rolls, the SEC sings,
in the halls of their Washington mansions.
Employees can scream at the directors' schemes.
The bonds and the stock are wall paper.
And farther below, their stock portfolios
will take in what the courtrooms will send them.
The lawyers all go as reporters all know
where the gales of bankruptcy will take them.

In a musty old hall down at Justice they prayed,
in the employees' meetings that followed.
The exchange bell chimed 'til it rang 29 times
for each billion that Enron had squandered.
The Legend comes down from the SEC on down
of the scandal they call Enronscrewedme.
The stink it is said, rivals that of the dead,
when the skies of the market turn gloomy.