A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

So Long Studs lyrics
Saturday, November 1, 2008

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Oh here's to a man who lived long and well
Died yesterday, born in 1912
A sickly child, weighed only four pounds
Arrived on the day the Titanic went down

SO LONG IT'S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YOU
SO LONG IT'S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YOU
SO LONG IT'S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YOU
GOODBYE STUDS TERKEL GOODBYE AND FAREWELL
AND I'VE GOT TO BE DRIFTING ALONG

He was a great man and I knew him, kid.
No one lived better than Studs Terkel did.
A child of Chicago and of radio
He lived 96 years before he let go.
He was a talker, in bars and cafes
He'd start a story and it went on for days
He talked to you like you were his best friend
And then when the evening came to an end (he said)

CHORUS

He was pals with Algren, and with Mahalia
He knew success and he knew about failure
An historian of life on the street
He talked to the bums like they were the elite
He had a TV show back in the day
Which he wrote himself and did his own way
When he was blacklisted as a left-winger
He left with a smile as he gave them the finger. (SAID)

CHORUS

A radio man for about fifty years
Interviewed rebels and brave pioneers
Skeptics, philosophers, artists, and cranks,
Generals but also the guys in the ranks.
Had wild white hair and sparkling eyes
A man of vast spirit and diminutive size
Loved cigars and martinis and stories and jokes
At the end of the evening he'd say to the folks

CHORUS

He lived in Chicago on the North Side
And there yesterday Studs Terkel died
He gave a big smile and waved as he went
Believing Obama would become president.

If you believe in the unbroken circle
Then I expect we will rejoin Studs Terkel
And until that beautiful bright shining day
We gather around him and quietly say

CHORUS