Newspapermen - Pete Seeger

Oh, newspapermen meet such interesting people!

He knows the low-down (now it can be told)

I’ll tell you quite reliably off the record

About some charming people I have known

For I meet politicians, and grafters by the score

Killers plain and fancy, it’s really quite a bore

Oh, newspapermen meet such interesting people!

He wallows in corruption, crime, and gore

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, city desk;

Hold the press, Hold the press;

Extra!

Extra!

Read all about it!

It’s a mess, meets the test

Oh, newspapermen meet such interesting people!

It’s wonderful to represent the press

Now, you remember Mrs. Sadie Smuggery

She needed money for a new fur coat

To get insurance, she employed skullduggery

She up and cut her husband’s only throat

She chopped him into fragments, she stuffed him in a trunk

She shipped it all back yonder to her uncle in Podunk

Now, newspapermen meet such interesting people!

It must have startled poor old Sadie’s unc

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, city desk;

Hold the press, Hold the press;

Extra!

Extra!

Read all about it!

It’s a mess, meets the test

Oh, a newspaperman meets such interesting people!

It’s wonderful to represent the press

Now, newspapermen meet such interesting people!

I’ve met the gal with million-dollar knees

Oh, so the guy who sat five years upon a steeple;

Just where the point was I could never see

Yes, I’ve met Capone and Hoover, and lots of other fakes

I’ve even met a genius who swallows rattlesnakes

Oh, a newspaperman meets such interesting people!

The richest girl who could not bake a cake

Ting-a-ling

Ting-a-ling

Ting-a-ling

Now, newspapermen are such interesting people!

They used to work like hell just for romance

But finally, the movies notwithstanding

They all got tired of patches on their pants

They organized a union to get a living wage

They joined with other actors upon a living stage

Now newspapermen are such interesting people

When they know they’ve got a people’s fight to wage

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, Newspaper Guild

Got a free new world to build;

Meet the people, that’s a thrill

All together fits the bill

Now, newspapermen are such interesting people!

It’s wonderful to represent the Guild

Oh, publishers are such interesting people!

Their policy’s an acrobatic thing

They claim they represent the common people

It’s funny Wall Street never has complained

But the publishers have worries, for publishers must go

To working folks for readers, and big shots for their dough

Now, are publishers are such interesting people!

It could be press-titution, I don’t know

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, circulation

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, advertising

Get those readers, get that payoff

What a headache, what a mess

Oh, publishers are such interesting people!

Let’s give three cheers for freedom of the press