Thank You For Your Support

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a porch swing, two men sitting down, a long pause)
"My name is Frank Bartles. This is my partner Ed Jaymes."
Neither of those men exist.

[Verse 1]
Two fellas on a porch in a pair of plaid shirts,
one of them does all the talking and the other never words,
just sits there. Just sits. Just looks off at the field.
And America adored them for the better part of a decade.
Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes. Two names on a bottle.
Sold wine coolers by the ocean-load. And they were not real.

[Chorus]
Thank you for your support! That's how he ended every one!
Thank you for your support — and the silent one just nods along!
It was Gallo. It was always Gallo, the whole entire time,
the biggest winery in the world behind two men on a porch.
Thank you for your support. Say it like you mean it.
He meant it. That's the thing. The man delivering it meant it.

[Verse 2]
'Cause Frank was played by David Rufkahr, who was a farmer,
an actual one, who'd never acted, and had a face you'd trust
because he'd earned it honestly, outdoors, over years.
And Ed was Dick Maugg, a building contractor, who said nothing —
he was hired to sit and not to speak, and he was perfect at it.
Two non-actors playing men who don't exist. And it read as true.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
Here's the paradox that I can't shake loose from this:
they were fake men played by real men, and the realness was the point.
If you'd cast two actors it would not have worked at all,
you'd have seen the acting, and the whole thing would have fallen.
It took two men who couldn't act to sell a man who wasn't there.
The lie required the truth to carry it.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(the porch swing, slowing)
Thank you for your support.
He's still saying it. Somewhere, he's still saying it.