Bobby and Jackie and Jack

1960

It's 1960

And gosh, what a swell year it's been!

So many blessings

Such wonders it has brought

You hardly know where to begin

There's Xerox

And lasers

The twist and the "pill"

A city in Brazil—

That no one wants to fill

Khrushchev stopped screaming

And Librium came in

And Nixon didn't win

Goodbye then to Ike and the brass

To years that were cozy but crass

It's true Ike was icky

But better him than Dicky—

Now meet the first first family with class

En masse

There's Bobby—

And Jackie—

And Jack—

And myriads more in the back

There's Ethel and Teddy and Pat alone—

Plus Eunice—

And Peter-

And Jean—

And Joan—

And what's-his-name—? (Stephen—)

And hold the phone—

The one in the army—

One in the army?

Captain... Major

Sargent!

That's it!

So many cards in the pack

You want to know how to keep track?

Well, one is good looking and young and rich

While one is good looking and young and rich

The rest are good looking

And young and rich—

There isn't a lot that they lack

Not Bobby and Jackie and Jack

And Ethel and Ted and Eunice and Pat and Joan

And Steve and Peter and Jean and Sarge—

There's probably dozens of others at large

God knows—

And Joe and Rose

We're bringing back style to the White House

I'm painting it beige for a start

We're making it into a cultural lighthouse

For glamour—

And beauty—

And art

Evenings of the Budapest playing Vivaldi

And Munch doing bits of Ravel

I'll get Leontyne Price to sing her

Medley from "Meistersinger"

And Margot Fonteyn to dance "Giselle"

Together?

Won't it be perfectly swell?

We'll have Bernstein play next on

The Bechstein piano—

And Auden read poems and stuff

And Galina Vishnevskaya

Gesundheit

The Russian soprano—

Just pronouncing her name is refreshing enough

We're bringing back style to the White House

With casual culture the rule

Let's have Tebaldi—

She makes a guy feel good

And Oleg Cassini—

Well, I think he's real good

And how about Heifetz?

And Callas!

And Gielgud!

And later, when everything's cool

We'll push them all into the pool!

All right Bobby, I'll make you attorney general. Just get off my back

With Bobby—

And Jackie—

And Jack—

The White House is under attack

Eight years is the limit, but eight will do

By then there'll be Bobby—

—And Teddy, too

Or Peter or Stephen—

—Or even you

Oh!

And then there's the Colonel—

Colonel?

Major—?

Major?

You know—!

Sargent

Yes!

Dozens to take up the slack

If anything goes out of whack

And someday elections will be unknown—

'Cause each of our kids will ascend the throne—

And their kids have more kids with kids of their own—

It's sort of a family knack—

Till most of the nation's

Made up of relations

Of Bobby and Jackie and Jack

And Ethel and Ted and Eunice and Pat and Joan

And Steve and Peter and Jean and Sarge

And Joe and Rose and rows and rows

And rows and rows and rows and rows

The decade is starting anew

And maybe the country is, too