[Verse 1: Midwest chopper male MC, rapid-fire over the punchy live drums] Thirty years in a yellow jacket on the steps of the soybean pit Every bell I was elbows and lungs and a pencil and a voice that would never quit Then they moved the whole floor to a server in a room with the blinds pulled down And the loudest men in Chicago got a pension and a cough in a quiet town Now the corner of our block is for sale, the bakery, the barber, the bar And a man in a vest wants it all for a song and he's already parking his car But the sale is a public auction at the courthouse Tuesday at ten So I opened up my book with the numbers and I called up my men [Pre-Hook: Midwest chopper male MC] Get the jackets out the closet, get the badges off the wall If they wanted a quiet auction, they picked the wrong hall [Hook: Midwest chopper male MC] Open outcry, every hand in the air Palms in means buy, and we buying it there They wanted it quiet, a nod and a bid Open outcry, they can hear what we did [Verse 2: Midwest chopper male MC, faster, the guitar stabs on every turn] Forty old men in the lobby with their jackets in a garment bag and a brace on a knee Gold, green, yellow and red, every face in the hall looking hungry as me The auctioneer is looking at the vest like is this a joke, are these your friends I said nah, we the market, we just came to see how the morning ends He opened at a number that would make a landlord laugh And the vest raised a finger like he cutting it in half Then Sully let a roar out that rattled the flag on the pole And Ricky had a price up before the vest could even get control We were stacking up the bids like a limit day in August with the rain gone missing Every finger was a quarter of a million and the whole room started listening [Hook: Midwest chopper male MC] Open outcry, every hand in the air Palms in means buy, and we buying it there They wanted it quiet, a nod and a bid Open outcry, they can hear what we did [Bridge: Midwest chopper male MC, hand signals, the drums thin to a lone snare while he calls each sign] Palms in, buying Palms out, selling Fingers up for the price and sideways for the tens Fist under the chin and it's done, my friends [Verse 3: Midwest chopper male MC, full speed to the finish] The vest went home with a parking ticket and a story that he never gonna tell And we own a bakery, a barber and a bar with a jukebox and a bell Forty old men put their pensions in a pot and the pot put a lock on the door So the neighborhood keeps every chair that it had and the bread is a dollar, not more They said the pit was dead and the holler was a relic from a world before wires But a room full of lungs is a market, and the market just outbid the buyers [Final Hook: Midwest chopper male MC] Open outcry, every hand in the air Palms in means buy, and we buying it there They wanted it quiet, a nod and a bid Open outcry, they can hear what we did [End]
