The lyrics to Mr Bad Example…

Related to Things to do in Denver when you’re Dead is the Warren Zevon album “Mr Bad Example” from which the film’s title is derived. The track in question goes like this: “I called up my friend Leroy on the phone. I said, Buddy, I’m afraid to be alone. I got some weird ideas in my head. About things to do in Denver when you’re dead.” But it’s not the best song on what is a fairly mediocre album. That goes to “Mr Bad Example”

I started as an altar boy working at the church
Learning all my holy moves doing some research
Which led me to a cash box labelled ‘Children’s Fund’
I’d leave the change and tuck the bills inside my cummerbund.

I got a part-time job at my father’s carpet store
Laying tackless stripping and housewives by the score.
I loaded up their furniture and took it to Spokane
And auctioned off every last naugahyde divan.

I’m very well acquainted with the seven deadly sins
I keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in
I’m proud to be a glutton and I don’t have time for sloth.
I’m greedy and I’m angry and I don’t care who I cross.

I’m Mr Bad Example, intruder in the dirt
I like to have a good time and I don’t care who gets hurt.
I’m Mr Bad Example, take a look at me.
I’ll live to be a hundred and go down in infamy.

Of course I went to law school and got a law degree
And counselled all my clients to plead insanity.
Then worked in hair replacement, swindling the bald.
Where very few are chosen, and fewer still are called.

Then on to Monte Carlo, playing chemin de fer
I threw away the fortune I made transplanting hair
I put my last few francs down on a prostitute
Who took me up to her room to perform the flag salute.

Whereupon I stole her passport and her wig
And headed for the airport and the midnight flight, you dig?
Fourteen hours later I was down in Adelaide
Looking through the want ads sipping Fosters in the shade.

I opened up an agency somewhere down the line
To hire aboriginals to work the opal mines
But I attached their wages and took a whopping cut
And whisked away their worker’s comp and pauperized the lot.

I’m Mr Bad Example, intruder in the dirt
I like to have a good time and I don’t care who gets hurt
I’m Mr Bad Example, take a look at me
I’ll live to be a hundred and go down in history

I bought a first class ticket on Malaysian Air
Landed in Sri Lanka none the worse for wear
I’m thinking of retiring from all my dirty deeds
See you in the next life, wake me up for meals…