[To the tune of “Thunder Road”] by Bruce Epstein

♫  ♫

The cell door slams

A wary press waves

Televisions wink out in surveillance rooms as the radio plays

Whitewash as bad as Tom Sawyer’s —

Hey, I’m Epstein, and I want my lawyers —

Don’t unscrew the bulb again

I just can’t beat myself to a pulp again

Don’t run back outside, Warden, you know just what I’m here for:

Pols are scared and they’re thinking that maybe I ain’t that strong anymore

Show a little faith in the magic of blackmail

You ain’t on duty, but that’s just a detail

Oh, and the alt-right can’t get me

♩

You can hide behind a cover story, study your plan

Make excuses when discovered, throw somebody in a van

Spend your summers from now on in Milan

Ignoring the word on the street:

Well, I’m like Nero, I’m like a god

All the extortion I can offer (girls) is beneath this dirty facade

With a chance to make it pay somehow

Hey, what else can they do to me now?

Except, why are they rolling up a towel and letting my roommate out the door?

With this story busting open these headlines soon won’t be there anymore

We have one last chance to get that witch —

Did I remember a dead man’s switch?

Screens all black . . . no one’s watching or even keeping track . . .

Uh, oh, overplayed my hand

Checking out tonight so others won’t take the stand

Oh, oh, oh, oh, Under Oath

Oh, Under Oath, oh Under Oath

Lying out there, when you’re Prisoner #1

Hey I know it’s karma, we can’t fake it or run

Oh, oh, oh, oh, Under Oath:
These lies
Take hold
Under Oath

♩♩♪

Well, they got to the guards and they learned how to make me not talk

And the coroner’s out back if you’re ready to take that long walk

To the front page from my bedsheet

The story’s there but the writers ain’t free

And I know they’re happy for words that I ain’t spoke

Tonight they’ll be free, and my mistress will be broke

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the victims we threw away

They haunt that disgusting beach condo in the frame-ups and porno pedo ways

They scream my name at night in the street

Saturation media lies like rags about defeat

And as they only try to blame Don

You hear their anchors roaring on

But my secrets and fortune are gone on the wind:
Very clandestine —

In a story full of losers

But “I didn’t kill myself”

For the win!

♫  ♫

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