Laughing Matters - Bette Midler

Live at five and CNN

Keep us all abreast

Of breaking stories that can tend

To make us anxious and depressed

Problems with no answers

Hang on like somechronic cough

And every day some brand new issue

Rears it’s head to piss you off

Bad guys win

Optimism’s wearing thin

Things are spinning out of control

Cynicism’s all the fad

World evens could make us mad

As hatters

Almost every day

Some underpinning slips away

These aren’t laughing matters

Time bombs tick

People keep on getting sick

And a nickel’s not worth a cent

Wickedness and greed abound

Just as peace is gaining ground

It shatters

Hate is here to stay

And justice goes to those who pay

Friend, these aren’t laughing matters

The truth is scarier by far

Than anything that Stephen King could write

The stories in the paper are

The daily small decline and fall

Spelled out in black and white

Oh, what to do, what to do?

How to take a brighter view

When your noodle’s totally fried

Human spirits need to be Leavened by a little levity

So take those blues

And bounce them off the wall

Keep your humor please

'Cause don’t you know it’s times like these that

Laughing matters most of all