I painted names on boats for a summer For luck you keep the same first letter You don't want You don't want You don't want Bad luck at sea
Rich man's folly and poor man's dream I painted these While beavers built dams all around me
And come September, come fall Holding a job was not believable behavior at all So I split But like a beaver is a dam builder you never really quit
I made some dough and I socked it away I always said for a rainy day I never truly knew who I was working for anyway
The rich or the poor Who am I working for? The rich or the poor
When the hurricane hit Some found it suspicious that I'd just since left the frame Like all that time spent down by the water Had somehow given me control over the rain And some people say wrongly that I washed things away Guess I got my rainy day
Like a sorcerer's cape The rain ripped the lips off the mouth of the bay And rendered the eye And slighted the air and tricked the land and blew the air away
Then came a quiet No one should know
Rich man's folly and poor man's dream I'm painting these While beavers build dams all around me