on the coat tails of the lord

Malvina Reynolds

The biggest time evangelist of all
Tonight will be on T.V.
Faces bright shine from the full page ad.
They've come to save us,
Ain't you glad to be had?

With their smile up-lifted faces,
And their happy, happy, happy,
They will con you into thinking
They've got something, something, something,
But they're riding on the coat tails of the Lord.

They are smug, they have a secret,
But it's not the love of heaven.
They rejoice because they've conned us
And they've wrapped their hype around us
And they're riding on the coat tails of the Lord.

Hungry souls, we come to hear them,
And we're empty when we leave them,
There's no protein in illusion,
In the heavy word of diffusion
Of the riders on the coat tails of the Lord.

For a mess of sounding phrases
We renounce our earthly wages,
While in name of humble Jesus
They move easy in high places
Where they're riding on the coat tails of the Lord.