Live at Five and CNN

keep us all abreast

of breaking stories that can tend

to make us anxious and depressed.

Problems with no answers

hang on like some chronic cough.

And every day some brand new issue

rears it's head to piss you off.



Bad guys win.

Optimism's wearing thin.

Things are spinning out of control.

Cynicism's all the fad.

World events could make us mad

as hatters.

Almost every day

some underpinning slips away.

These aren't laughing matters.



Time bombs tick.

People keep on getting sick.

And a nickel's not worth a cent.

Wickedness and greed abound.

Just as peace is gaining ground

it shatters.

Hate is here to stay,

and justice goes to those who pay.

Friend, these aren't laughing matters.



The truth is scarier by far

than anything that Stephen King could write.

The stories in the paper are

the daily small decline and fall

spelled out in black and white.



Oh, what to do, what to do?

how to take a brighter view

when your noodle's totally fried.

Human spirits need to be

leavened by a little levity.

So take those blues

and bounce them off the wall.

Keep your humor please,

'cause don't you know it times like these that

laughing matters most of all.