Henry's Songbook

        I've got a little bitty gun on the table
        Right by my little bitty bed
        Though it's really very cute
        How you hold the thing to shoot
        Is too much for my little bitty head
        I love my little bitty pistol
        It's the pride of my little bitty room
        And the gun shoots little bitty bullets
        When the little bitty gun goes 'boom'

How I love my husband, he takes care of me
He'll take care of all of you - you'll just wait and see
When he has to go away, nights are long and black
If the bad man comes around I'll shoot his lights out, Jack

Now we're in the White House, won't we dance till dawn
Turning loose some Welfare folks on the White House lawn
You bring your little pistol, I'll bring my pistol, too
We'll fire our pistols at their feet - they'll dance for me and you

[1988:] A little love song I wrote for Nancy Reagan a few years ago when, with impeccable timing - and now, of course, we understand the source of that impeccable timing - and with ineffable grace, Mrs. Reagan chose a couple of days after John Lennon's murder to stick her two cents' worth into the handgun controversy - predictably enough, opposing any handgun controls whatsoever, thereby aligning herself not only with her husband but with millions of my fellow Americans who devoutly believe that it's only their possession of a snub-nose '38 revolver that is holding the Russian missiles at bay, and that it's their bounden duty to have one. Anyway, she went on at some length about the gun that Ron had bought for her back when he used to travel a lot for General Electric making speeches ... And she told of how she kept it in her night table although - Heaven forfend! - she never actually learned to fire it, you understand - titter, titter - and I could feel a song welling up inside me. (Tom Paxton, intro 'Politics')