Mozart's Money

Where the hell did it go?
They say he spent it all on wine and women
But even so--
I know a guy who wrote a song for Garth Brooks
And now he's got it made for life
But Mozart never really made a lot of money,
And that's what I tell my wife.
I'd like to know what happened to Poe's
Investment portfolio
Maybe he walled it up in that crypt
With his good friend Fortunato
I know a guy who knows Stephen King
Who'll be a sheik in the afterlife
But Mr. Poe never made much dough
And that's what I tell my wife
I accost her with tales of Stephen Foster
And the visionary William Blake
I say "Honey, you can't count the money
That a genius doesn't make."
But Wallace Stevens was also from Hartford,
a big insurance man
William Carlos Williams was a pediatrician
And Eliot worked in a bank.
Time will tell if they were poets as well
Or if they're just big books on the shelf
But most of my heroes never made a lot of money
And that's what I keep telling myself
What ever happened to Mozart's money--and what about van Gogh?
I tell you there's more than blood that's red in the books of Edgar Allen
Poe
Imagination in large denominations is something you can never earn
But the poor damned souls who made Mozarts money, still got money to burn
Yeah, the poor damned souls who made Mozarts money,
they still got money to burn
Copyright 1995, Hugh Blumenfeld / Hydrogen Jukebox Music