The Button Pusher

(album: Revolution - 1970)

I am the man, the well fed man
In charge of the terrible knob
The most pleasing thing about it
It's almost a permanent job

When the atom war is over
And the world is split in three
A consolation I've got, well, maybe it's not
There'll be nobody left but me

I sit at my desk in Washington
In charge of this great machine
More vicious than Adolf Hitler
More deadly than strychnine

And in the evening after a tiring day
Just to give myself a laugh
I hit the button a playful belt
And I listen for the blast

I am the man, the well fed man
In charge of the terrible knob
The most pleasing thing about it
It's almost a permanent job

When the atom war is over
And the world is split in three
A consolation I've got, well, maybe it's not
There'll be nobody left but me

If Brezhnev starts his nonsense
And makes a nasty smell
With a wink and a nod from Nixon
I'll blast them all to hell

And as for that fellow Castro
Him with the sugar cane
He needn't hide behind his whiskers
I'll get him just the same

I am the man, the well fed man
In charge of the terrible knob
The most pleasing thing about it
It's almost a permanent job

When the atom war is over
And the world is split in three
A consolation I've got, well, maybe it's not
There'll be nobody left but me

If me wife denies my conjucular rights
Or me breakfast milk is sour
From eight to nine in the morning
You're in for a nervous hour

The button being so terribly close
It's really a dreadful joke
A bump of my ass as I go past
And we'll all go up in smoke

I am the man, the well fed man
In charge of the terrible knob
The most pleasing thing about it
It's almost a permanent job

When the atom war is over
And the world is split in three
A consolation I've got, well, maybe it's not
There'll be nobody left but me

Now I'm thinking of joining the army
The army that bans the bomb
We'll take up a large collection
And I'll donate my thumb

For without it I am helpless
And that's the way to be
You don't have to kill the whole bloody lot
To make the people free

I am the man, the well fed man
In charge of the terrible knob
The most pleasing thing about it
It's almost a permanent job

When the atom war is over
And the world is split in three
A consolation I've got, well, maybe it's not
There'll be nobody left but me