Lyrics Todd Snider

Todd Snider

New York Banker

All these years, Arkansas, teachin' at the high school

How was I to know by retirement day

I'd learn a lesson so cruel?

I came to the day I had waited on

Just to find out all the money in our pension was gone

We invested in somethin' called the Abacus Bond

Sold to us by a New York banker

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

A big time banker from New York City

Came down south one day

Sold our people on the bond

Had our money bettin' on some kinda

Home loans getting' paid

Buy it they say, we were clearly told

This kinda thing was even safer than gold

But later on we found out the bond we'd been sold

Had been set up to fail all along

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

We'd been set up to fail all along

Though none of our people had ever quite sensed it

Come to find out the bond born to fail'd been built

So that banker could bet his bread against it

When the house market crashed, our retirement did too

Everybody said there was nothing we could do

That banker walked off with a million or two

I'm still teachin' at the high school

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people

Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people