Baba Brinkman - Merchant's Tale lyrics

It’s the story of a rich old man, January
He’s still a bachelor at sixty
But now he plans to marry
And he’s looking for a beautiful young wife
Which is an option for
Rich old geezers sometimes
See, January was one of those "secularists"
Which means he had no control
Over his sexual urges
He couldn’t say which was better
Gettin’ laid or gettin’ paid
He just knew when he was gettin’ one
The other would get away
But then he changed
Whether from religious sensibility
Or whether he just got
Thick headed from senility
I can’t say, but suddenly he wanted it
January became a dedicated monogamist
Instead of a misogynist
Treating women like objects


It’s funny how our attitudes
Change with our prospects
Yeah, marriage is a beautiful thing
Especially for those who are too old to swing
That’s when it’s nice to just
Stay home with your wife
Instead of chasing waterfalls
‘cause it’s cold outside
Take my advice, all you bachelor men
If you want love and
Happiness and companionship you need a wife
A woman who will never be impatient
No more rejection and constant humiliation
Or anyway, that’s what January would say
Once he decided he was ready
For his wedding day
So he asked his friends to
Help him find somebody and said "Guys
Just try to make sure she’s under twenty
I want sex appeal, not a tough old cow
I want some tender veal, instead of know-how
I want a woman I can mold
Right now with my own hands
Not a pre-fab thirty-year-old
I want some warm wax
Well, soon a young girl caught his fancy
And he said he had to have her
If he wanted to be happy
And I’ll skip the details of
How they got engaged
Except just to say: rich men get the females
The girl that he chose was named May
A pretty eighteen-year-old with a baby face
And when the wedding day came
The pairing was gorgeous
They looked like Calista Flockhart
And Harrison Ford
If Calista was more like Miley Cyrus’ age
Yeah, everyone agreed that the
Bride was a babe
And January just watched her with
Lust in his eyes
And all he really wanted was
To bust in her thighs
But first he had to get
Through the vows and feast and the speeches
While suppressing his eagerness
But when the last guest in
The villa went home
He took his bride to bed – she
Lay as still as a stone as he caressed her
And said "Sorry I have to hurt you
But the church say sex within
Marriage is a virtue
And now that we’re husband and wife
I can make tonight last as long as I like"
And in spite of his age, January stayed solid
And several long hours
Of unpleasantness followed
And in the morning, instead of passing out
He sat up in bed singing
And laughing out loud
And she just watched him, like "Ew
He’s crazy old!
The wrinkles on his neck look like
The skin of a baby mole!"
And so on, and January singin’ his verses
With his wife lying next to him
Thinkin’ he’s worthless
So we’ll just leave May in
Bed with her disappointment
And I’ll talk about the fly in the ointment
January had an assistant named Damian
He was at the wedding, yeah
He was one of his favorites
But Damian couldn’t even enjoy the day
Because Damian had eyes only for May
But he knew he couldn’t tell her
‘cause his boss was jealous
And January had sway like the Rockafellers
So he thought to himself that the
Sure way to get her
Was to write the girl a note, oh yes
A love letter when he finished the note
Like a sneaky sneak
Damian hid it somewhere she
Would find it secretly
And he signed his name to it
He was takin’ his chances
‘Cause a young man’s likelihood
Of mating advances
By takin’ risks – that’s how human nature is
‘Cause the girls love a guy if he’s dangerous
And when May found the note
She read it and smiled
‘Cause he was kinda sweet
Plus it was written with style
And it said: "PS – I’m dead
If you tell your husband"
So she ripped it into fifty
Little pieces and flushed it
Well after that things changed
Damian and May played the winking game
But they couldn’t follow through ‘cause
There was a jealous guy
In the mix – January kept a watchful eye
On his chick, and the months passed by
But January was old – he
Was slowly going blind
Which was increasing Damian’s
Chance of penetration
Thank goodness for advanced
Macular degeneration
And if January was jealous before
Well, his blindness amplified it just
A little bit more
He was so afraid to find his wife in a tryst
That he kept one hand at
All times on her wrist with no exceptions
Not even for toilet breaks
While she peed he would hover beside
Her like a coiled snake guarding it's eggs
But his problem wasn’t solved
Cause her lack of freedom
Just increased her resolve
And pretty soon, opportunity knocked
‘Cause January liked to take afternoon walks
In the garden, holding May by the elbow
He didn’t trust her for a second on her own
Hell no! The garden was surrounded by a
Wall with a locked gate
He wanted privacy to exercise his prostate
With May when he please
D in a grove of trees
And a chain around his neck held the only key
But January slept like a corpse after strolls
So May copied the key in a warm wax mold
When he was passed out
And passed it out the window
To Damian, along with a note containing info
On what he should do, how long he should take
When he should enter the garden gate
And where he should wait
And he obeyed, Damian did what he was told
A guy’s gotta roll with it
When a woman’s in control
Of his fate, and the very next day
January awoke with the sun on his face
He couldn’t see it but he knew
It was a beautiful day
So he said: "Let’s take a
Walk in the garden May"
She said "Okay" and dutifully
Walked beside him
And when they passed through the gate
He locked it behind them
And said "Now there’s no one here
But you and me woman" but Damian was there
She could see him but he couldn’t
He was sitting in a tree according to plan
And as she walked with her husband
She was holding his hand
And saying "Babe, I don’t get it
Why don’t you trust me more?
The way you treat me you must
Think I’m nothing but a whore
Always holding my arm
It’s like you expect me
To fuck somebody different every second
If you let me we made a solemn vow to
Be faithful to each other
Through the good and the bad
And always stay together but for real
If you’re with me every second it’s no party
And January said "Aw, May baby, I’m so sorry
I wish I didn’t have to
Watch you every second
Like a chicken hawk – it’s
Just these jealous thoughts!
Ever since I lost my ability to see
All I think about is other men humiliating me
So I have to keep my
Property under lock and key
And that includes you, my love, obviously
I wanna set you free
But I’m afraid of human nature
By keeping you with me I’m
Saving you from temptation
And May said, "Oh well, I guess that’s fair
Ooh, look up in that tree
Such delicious pears! Oh please
Let me climb up and pick some for us to eat
You can guard the base of the
Tree if you don’t trust me"
And he was kinda hungry
So he held the tree’s base and said "Okay
But don’t tell me you never get free space"
And for the sensitive folk, please
Forgive my bluntness
But Damian just lifted up her
Skirts and thrust in
May and Damian, sitting in a tree
F-U-C-K-IN-G like a couple of animals
With May’s jealous husband
Obliviously guarding the trunk of
It down below
Now it’s time for a sublime suspension
Of disbelief
‘cause here comes divine intervention
The ancient Roman gods, Pluto and Persephone
Happened to be watching from above
And commenced a heated
Argument about who was in the right
The jealous old husband or
The adulterous wife she said "Pluto
Why you gotta be so hard on us
Why you swear all women are so scandalous?
Just look at how he treats her
She’s practically on a leash
This guy deserves to get cheated on
Honestly"
And for his reply, Pluto quoted the poet Ovid
And said "Bitches ain’t shit
But hoes and tricks no wonder he’s jealous
Just look at this little slut
She’d climb in a tree just like
A monkey to get some nuts
In fact, fuck that
I’ll give him his sight back
And she’ll get caught in the act, yeah
We’ll see how she likes that
And I’ll give every man the gift of suspicion
Like a weapon to keep an
Eye on their scandalous woman"
And Persephone said "Fine
If you give him his sight back
And make men suspicious
Then I’ll give women a gift to fight back
If your gift to men is
To make them jealous twit's
Then my gift to women is
The gift of deceptiveness
The gift of sweet words
And deflection and flattery
Everything they need to keep
Their men from reality"
Isn’t it strange that the gifts the gods gave
Sound like the product of
An evolutionary arms race
So that if anyone was randomly
Born with an advantage
In the battle of the sexes
Then they’d leave more descendents
On average… Ah forget it
Call it a divine gift
And we’ll go back to the
Story of January’s blindness
Which evaporated miraculously
And he looked at his hands like
"God damn! I can see!
I can see… My wife up in a tree?!
With a man… Fucking in the canopy!?!"
And May instantly climbed down
While Damian crouched behind some
Branches to hide himself
She said "Oh, thank god it worked!
When I first heard about it
I thought it was the oddest cure!"
"Cure?!" he said "But
You were bent over a branch
With a man…" She said "No
That was an interpretive dance"
"There was a man, but he’s gone now, see?
No man in the tree it’s just you and me
And you can see, so you shouldn’t be angry
I just gave you back your vision
You should thank me
It’s a new form of alternative therapy
You do an interpretive dance with a
Man up in a pear tree and it acts as a
Homeopathic cure for blindness
It’s based on the latest in quantum science!"
"But, I saw your dress pulled
Up to your chest" he said
"and there was thrusting and exposed flesh"
And she said "Look
You know how you can’t trust your sight
First thing in the morning until
You adjust to the light, right?
Well, come on, you’ve been utterly blind
For months darling
You probably just have rusty eyes
And besides, didn’t you just say that
You had visions in your
Head of being humiliated
So how do you know that
It wasn’t one of those i mean
There’s nothing we see that
The mind doesn’t control
So it isn’t shameful if you hallucinate
But, you have your vision back! Aw baby
That’s super great!"
And January didn’t really wanna fight
With his wife
And he was pretty happy for his sight
So he said "Okay, baby, maybe I was wrong"
And he believed it too he
Wasn’t just playing along
And they headed home together
Walking hand in hand
The model relationship between woman and man