Текст: Bette Midler. Bathhouse Betty. Laughing Matters.

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