Lyrics patron saint of bridge burners - fine feathers

O knave I am, confidence man, to steal both your plot and your plan. But if I’m to die then I’d rather I be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. My gossipping grandmother, gossamer gatherer, gave up my globetrotting gun-running grandfather; a blunder that bothered my father forever, I bet you my bottom and most valued dollar. He soberly suffers his swindling son-singer; O his family suffered, take me at my word. And my father’s four forfeitures may ruffle my feathers, but fine feathers, my friend, do not make a fine bird.

Make no mistake, for heaven’s sake; I let the chips fall as they may. But make no mistake, making mistakes is a game at which many can play; my father’s father and his father’s father and his father’s father, a fraud and finagler. Even carpenter/conjurer/cadaver/converter, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Though I may be too ruffled to resemble either, I catch all the worms and I eat all my words, and much like one swallow does not make a summer; fine feathers, my friend, do not make a fine bird.