Nixon Shock (August 15, 1971)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
It was August. Hot enough to crack the porch steps.
Sunday night. Fifteen of August, Seventy-One.
The whole country was sittin' down, maybe watchin' Bonanza.
Then the screen went dark, and the president came on.
He came on live from the Oval Office.
Looked like he hadn't slept.
Talkin' 'bout a secret meeting up at Camp David.
Talkin' 'bout enemies he called... "the speculators."
The whole world was leanin' in... to the blue light of the television set.

[Verse 2]
He looked right through the camera.
Said his man Connally... was gonna shut the window.
The gold window.
Said, "I have directed... to suspend... temporarily..."
"...the convertibility of the dollar into gold."
Just like that.
A promise made in a grand hotel up in New Hampshire...
The Mount Washington Hotel, nineteen-forty-four...
Just... blown away on a Sunday night broadcast.

[Chorus]
And the gold in Fort Knox just became a souvenir.
The anchor was cut. The ship was set adrift.
The deal made at Bretton Woods... was just a ghost in the humid air.
And the dollar in your pocket... well, it learned to float that night.
Yeah, it learned to swim all on its own.
In a sea of paper faith.

[Verse 3]
Then he kept on talkin'.
Ninety-day freeze on your wages, he said.
Ninety-day freeze on the price of bread.
Ten percent tax if you wanted to buy somethin' from overseas.
Just a list of orders, read out calm and slow.
Like he was changin' the weather.
And all the shopkeepers and the factory men
and the farmers lookin' at their fields...
They just nodded.
What else was there to do?

[Bridge]
He used that word... "temporarily."
A funny word.
Like a train station where the train never comes.
Like a letter you keep meanin' to send.
It's been fifty years of "temporarily."
And that window... is still shut tight.
Boarded up with plywood and promises.

[Outro]
The speech ended.
The Cartwrights came back on the screen.
But somethin' had changed in the room.
The paper in my wallet felt... lighter.
Or maybe it was heavier.
Couldn't decide.
Just a piece of paper... with a picture of a president on it.
Believin' in another president.