Professional Son

Singers: President Harry S. Truman, Bess Truman, Margaret Truman

Professional Son 2025Marc Dinkin and Kenny Dinkin

00:00 / 03:25

A young LBJ cozies up to people in power by appealing to their paternal instincts. Comments like “You’re just like a daddy to me,” are commonly used to engender support from the likes of Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, powerful Southern senator Richard Russell and President Roosevelt, who is convinced that that the young Congressman is a political Wonder Boy. With Roosevelt’s death, Johnson loses his most powerful ally, and he knows he needs the new boss on his side. Soon he is meeting with President Truman, hoping he too will see him as the son he never had. Unfortunately for Johnson, Give ’em Hell Harry is not so easily manipulated. “Go find you’re daddy, boy…and stop trying to be my son!”

LYRICS

A VERANDAH AT WARM SPRINGS, GA. 1945 DAY.

FDR onstage in a wheelchair in spotlight. As Cronkite talks
spotlight slowly goes out.

Walter Cronkite (TV):
And a nation mourns. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

LBJ: (to Lady Bird)
I loved that man like a daddy, Bird.

Lady Bird: (to audience)
But when one door closes, you gotta kick in
another.

THE WHITE HOUSE. 1945.
LBJ stands outside the Oval Office door with present-day Zephyr by
his side. He enters the room, where PRESIDENT TRUMAN is already
seated behind his desk.

Truman:
Good afternoon, Congressman... Is it Johnson?

LBJ: (unctuous)
President Truman, your name it fits you
‘Cause there’s never been a man so true
Like my daddy, you don’t pass the Buck
And when the people complain, you don’t give a fu--

Truman:

Stop!

You’re embarrassing yourself my boy.

I know you mean to kiss up but the truth is you annoy

Well I’ve been around the block, ok? I’ve seen just how roll

You had Rayburn wrapped about your finger and your petty goal

Right now is pretty plain to see

You mean to do the same to me

Just like you did to FDR

And I’m sure it’s helped you rise so far

But I’ve raised one child already and I’m done!

I'm not your daddy, boy, stop trying to be my son.

CHORUS

A professional son

Seems to be the game you play

But everyone

around you found

That you’d manipulate your way

By kissing so much ass that all the asses had to run

Ain’t no way I’m letting you play me

With your game of professional son

I don’t know what it’s like in Texas but down in Missouri

If someone licks your forehead boy, you run off in a hurry

But your hands on every shoulder

As you whisper in the ear

Of any one who’s older

Saying “let me help you dear”

But holding nothing sacred

But your meteoric rise

You’ll be an emperor so naked

Wearing nothing but the lies

That you used on every president

And mean to use on me

Go find some nursing home resident

Who needs some TLC

And go back home

And just try to get things done

And please stop trying to be my son

CHORUS

Harry Truman, Bess Truman and Margaret Truman:

A professional son

Seems to be the game you play

But everyone

around you found

That you’d manipulate your way

By kissing so much ass that all the asses had to run

Truman:

Ain’t no way I’m letting you play me

With your game of professional son

Harry Truman, Bess Truman and Margaret Truman:

Professional Son

Truman: (spoken)

Congressman, I didn’t ask for this job

It was thrust upon me

But I mean to use it for something.

Power is only valuable if you use it to help those people less fortunate than you.

LBJ:

Well I do like that, Mr. President

It resonates

Truman:

I'm glad to hear that.

LBJ:

If fact, it sounds just like my daddy.

Truman:

Get out!!!