Song Lyrics

He stood four foot eight
And wore a beatnik beard
He had big thick glasses
And looked real weird
He weighed ninety-eight pounds
But a whole nation feared
The rebel

He had a chick named Rhonda
A college prize
Her long hair hung down
Over her eyes
Kinda half Barbra Streisand
And half Joan Baez
She dug the rebel

Well, they met one day
At a pop art bash
Between a painting of a can
Of succotash
And a high camp sculpture
Of a pile of trash
It was groovy

Rhonda dug the rebel
And the rebel dug Rhonda
So she grabbed her guitar
And rode off on his Honda
To a discotheque
Called the Anaconda
With the Rebel

When the frugging was over
At the discotheque
The Rebel was a-tryin'
To pay his check
But his pockets, they were empty
So he yelled, "oh, heck"
"Heck," said the rebel
Well, the Dean walked by
Just as that occurred
He said, "you can get expelled
For what I just heard
Don't you realize 'heck'
Is a four-letter word
You rebel?"

But the rebel said
To his old adversary
"Just as long as that word's
In the slang dictionary
I swear by Peter, Paul & Mary
I'll use it"

"Furthermore," said the rebel
"I won't let the issue pass
The whole student body's gonna
Sit down en masse
Besides, that way
We don't have to go to class
We're gonna cool it"

Well, the sit-in started
'Bout 7:15
The whole thing was covered
By Time magazine
They even took Batman
Off the TV screen
To show the rebel

Out came the captain
Of the state police
Arresting lots of students
For disturbing the peace
Including his own son
His daughter and his niece
And the rebel

Someone called the governor
To see what he could do
The governor said, "sorry
But I cannot talk to you
'Cause I'm a-sittin' in
At the state house too
Just like the rebel"

Soon the secondary schools
Began to rebel
Kindergarten kids were sitting
During show and tell
Then the older generation
Started sitting down as well
Man, what a protest

Doctors sat, firemen sat
Teachers wouldn't teach
People sat at home
And on the street and on the beach
Jus a-sittin' and a-waitin'
For freedom of speech
Nobody was talkin' to anybody

The nation was in trouble
There wasn't any doubt
The President went on TV
To try to pull us out
And the President shouted
"What the heck's it all about?"
"Heck," said the President

Soon everyone was saying "heck"
They said it everywhere
And the rebel said to Rhonda
"This is terribly unfair
Being hip is getting middle class
Let's you and I be square"
And they did, they squared it up

Rhonda got a haircut
The rebel shaved his beard
They were married and had children
Which they subsequently reared
They moved out to the suburbs
And they really disappeared
Wow, did they conform

Folks built a statue of the rebel
Just to prove the people's love
But the public soon forgot it
Just the pigeons up above
Seem to know the right location
They've all found that statue of
The rebel

Allan Sherman

The duration of The Rebel is 3:42 minutes and seconds.