[Verse 1]
Seventeen-eleven, Robert Harley strikes a deal,
Nine million pounds of debt that nobody could heal,
Wraps it in a company, ties it with a bow,
Calls it South Sea trade, though the ships would rarely go,
Promise of Peru gold dressed in parliament's clothes,
A pension for the state where the real cargo flows.
[Chorus]
Nine to thirty-one, watch the numbers run,
Harley lit the spark, Walpole caught the gun,
One-twenty-eight in January, climbing like a kite,
A thousand pounds by June, then paper turns to blight,
Bubble Act, then bust — remember what it cost,
Britain found its footing where the French Crown lost.
[Verse 2]
Seventeen-twenty, ambition grows a spine,
Thirty-one million annuities in line,
Swap your government paper for a glittering share,
Dukes and chambermaids all catching speculator's air,
Coffeehouse chatter turns to shouting in the street,
Stock climbs like a fever nobody wants to beat.
[Verse 3]
June brings the Bubble Act, meant to guard the game,
Instead it starves the rivals and fans the very flame,
By autumn the balloon has nowhere left to rise,
Aislabie's caught with pockets full of lies,
Expelled from the Commons, his ledger turned to ash,
Walpole steps in quiet, cleans up the crash.
[Chorus]
Nine to thirty-one, watch the numbers run,
Harley lit the spark, Walpole caught the gun,
One-twenty-eight in January, climbing like a kite,
A thousand pounds by June, then paper turns to blight,
Bubble Act, then bust — remember what it cost,
Britain found its footing where the French Crown lost.
[Bridge]
Cross the Channel, John Law's dream in Paris falls apart,
Mississippi paper burns a hole clean through the heart,
No Parliament to haul the architects to court,
No Bank of England standing as the last resort,
Britain's credit battered but the scaffolding still stands,
Institutions outlive any gambler's hands.
[Verse 4]
Walpole splits the carcass, spreads the loss out thin,
Shares get re-divided, lets the smaller fish swim in,
Directors' fortunes seized to cover what they'd stripped,
The state's own word still floats though the company has dipped,
That's the lesson ringing louder than the bell,
Trust the system's walls, not the story that they sell.
[Chorus]
Nine to thirty-one, watch the numbers run,
Harley lit the spark, Walpole caught the gun,
One-twenty-eight in January, climbing like a kite,
A thousand pounds by June, then paper turns to blight,
Bubble Act, then bust — remember what it cost,
Britain found its footing where the French Crown lost.
[Outro]
Nine million mended, thirty-one gone wide,
A thousand-pound summer, then the tide,
Aislabie out, Walpole holds the seam,
Britain wakes up sober from the gilded dream.