J.C. Cohen Allan Sherman

Listen, all you children, to my sad refrain
About a subway conductor on a runaway train
Squeezing people into cars, he won his fame
(yeah) And John Charles Cohen was the great man's name

J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor
IRT, that's a subway line
And if you gotta travel uptown
He's a greater conductor than Leonard Bernstein

'Twas on a Sunday in the summer, and from everywhere
People planned to take a subway to the World's Fair
A half a million people tried to push and jar
All of them determined to get in one car

But the IRT depended on their finest men
J. C. Cohen could pack a subway like a sardine can
He pushed the people up and back and 'round about
He squeezed so many in, he squeezed the engineer out

J. C. Cohen, what a great conductor
How he'd moan, "Step to the rear."
J. C. Cohen, he really had a problem
On a subway train without an engineer

J. C. tried to get into the engineer's place
But when he look inside the cab he saw a strange man's face
A half-pint drunk with a full-pint bottle
He emptied out the bottle, and he yelled, "Full throttle!"