J C Cohen Lyrics - Singles - Allan Sherman

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