A Tale of A Ticker
By Frank Crumit and Frank O'Brien
 A Tale of A Ticker , a 1929
novelty song foreshadowing the 1929 stock-market crash, has music by Frank Crumit and lyrics by Frank O'Brien.
This little pig went to market,
Where they buy and sell the stocks,
This little pig came home again,
With his system full of shocks.
I don’t understand their language,
Don’t know what it’s all about,
For a bull buys up and a bear sells down and a broker sells you out;
And here is the song they sing the whole day long;
Oh! the market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;
We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.
The stock exchange is a funny place,
It’s the strangest place in town,
The seats cost half a million cash,
But the brokers won’t sit down.
There’s the broker the bull and bear,
It’s queer but it’s not a joke,
For you get the bull till your bank-roll’s bare
and the broker says you’re broke,
And here is the song I hear the whole day long;
Oh! The market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;
We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.
The market simply goes to prove,
That we still have loco weeds,
For the bull buys what he doesn’t want,
And the bear sells what he needs,
I bought an elevator stock,
And thought that I did well,
And the little bears all ran down-stairs
and rang the basement bell,
And here is the song I hear the whole day long;
Oh! The market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;
We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.
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