billy jonas / bridging divides

Chain Letter

I got a chain letter in the mail
Send copies to twenty friends
If you do you get rich, if you don't you're gonna die
You know the chain must never end

There was a woman in Sarajevo
She put the letter in the bottom drawer;
You know her bank went bust, her house burned down
And her country went to war

When she found the letter
She sent it off in a flash;
No one can explain but the fact remains
She found an envelope with twenty thousand dollars in cash

Chain letter in the mail
Send copies to twenty friends
If you do you get rich, if you don't you're gonna die,
The chain must never end — LINK IT UP!

  (Chorus)
  CHAIN CHAIN CHAIN CHAIN CHAIN LETTER,
  CHAINED TO THE CHAIN OF A CHAIN LETTER

Well I felt the awesome power
That the letter had bestowed;
And I knew that I was messing with a powerful blessing to be
Sensitively unloaded

I thought of every one I have ever known
Every summonable face and name;
I put the letter in a pile, and after a while
The bad luck fell like rain

I dropped my keys in a sewer
My wallet in a taxi cab;
Put diaper rash stuff on a toothbrush
Do I need to tell you that the taste was bad

And I knew I had to send the letters
If I wanted to change my luck;
I went back to the place
Where I put it, no trace
I thought to myself, "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFIND IT!"

  (Chorus)

I found it.  I made copies,
When a thought occurred to me:
My friends are great but they procrastinate
Just like me, it's gonna be a disaster jamboree

I thought of old Saint Helen
How the ashes touched us all;
And I went out to the compost pile
Where the grasses grow so tall

And I set that letter burning
Spiraling specks and flecks;
Sent a mental mass mailing through the
Cosmic Rolodex

It was a message of hope and peace
To every summonable face and name;
I let the good part fly through the endless sky
And left the evil dancing in the flames

I got a chain letter in the mail
You're gonna get it again and again ans again
And if you're singing along, you know you can't go wrong,
The chain will never end; LINK IT UP!

  (Chorus)

Words & Music by Billy Jonas

1993 Bang-A-Bucket Music, BMI