J.C. Cohen

Listen all you children to my sad refrain About a subway conductor on a runaway train Squeezing people into cars, he won his fame And John Charles Cohen was the great man's name J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor IRT that's a subway line And if you gotta travel uptown He's a greater conductor than Leonard Bernstein 'Twas on a Sunday in the summer and from everywhere People planned to take a subway to the World's Fair A half a million people tried to push and jar All of them determined to get in one car But the IRT depended on their finest men J. C. Cohen could pack a subway like a sardine can He pushed the people up and back and 'round about He squeezed so many in he squeezed the engineer out J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor How he'd moan, step to the rear J. C. Cohen, he really had a problem On a subway train without an engineer J. C. tried to get into the engineer's place But when he look inside the cab, he saw a strange man's face A half pint drunk with a full pint bottle He emptied out the bottle and he yelled, full throttle They passed Columbus Circle doing 82 A couple minutes later they were under Bronx Zoo J. C. shuddered and he said, "I guess This used to be a local but it's now an Express" J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor Kept his head when everyone was tense He said, "When we pass the city limits Everybody pays another fifteen cents" J. C. said, "We're heading north, my friends But not a man alive knows where the subway ends" The train went under Albany at 90 flat And Governor Rockefeller hollered, "What was that?" A lady said to J. C. Cohen with indignation "If this is Albany then you have passed my station So either you should take me back to fifty ninth Street Or ask one of these gentlemen to give me his seat" J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor J. C. Cohen noticed something odd When he saw lobsters on the roadbed He said, "I got a feeling we're beneath Cape Cod" Oh well, the train kept speeding to the north my friends Finally came to where the tunnel ends When they came up to the surface from the long, long hole They were twenty seven inches from the great North Pole J. C. hollered, "Everybody out This is the end of the line beyond the shadow of a doubt" They went out to get some fresh air and before they took a whiff Cohen and all the passengers were frozen stiff J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor Bless his soul, he ran out of luck J. C. Cohen, he was really frozen And he had to be brought home in a Good Humor truck When they told Mrs. Cohen that she'd lost her man She said, "Must you interrupt me when I'm playing Pan?" Then she said to her partner, Mrs. R. J. Rosen "Cohen was a lovely husband but he's no good frozen" Then she went to her little boy and took his hand And she said, "I'm going to take you out to Disneyland So Melvin, little darling, don't you weep or wail 'Cause you got another papa on the monorail" Got another papa on the monorail