Riffing before class with some kids who have band, I joked that they should write historical lyrics. On the spur of the moment, I demonstrated with a Franklin rap. Here is my quickly jotted doggeral:

Ben Franklin was an apprentice
But soon he built a printing press

Author of Poor Richard’s Almanack
This is my Ben Franklin Rap.

Since the “Early bird catches the worm”
Laziness and vice young Ben spurned.

American enlightenment figure,
At blind faith he would snigger.

To expanded the horizons of his fellow men
Founded the University of Penn

More than a man with intellectual curiosity
At Albany he advocated colonial unity.

Historian Brands called him the first American
During the Stamp boycott he wore homespun

He knew Tom Paine
Joined the refrain
Said it was only Common Sense
And with aplomb
Helped young Tom
Write the Dec of Independence

Scientist and man of letters
The Frenchmen weren’t his betters

Sent to France, he donned a hat of coon skin
Public relations to bring an ally in

As an old man in gay Paree
Was a hit with zee lay-dies.

Not for democracy, he told King Louis
Strike a blow against British tyranny!

Victory for Continental defiance,
He concluded the French alliance.

When the framers were divide by tension,
Compromiser at the Philadelphia convention.

Ben worker to heal the slavery rift
They compromised on three fifths

Inspired by the Sun on his Louis Fourteen chair,
Supported the bicameral legislature.

Superannuated he might have been,
But brilliant to then end was our dear Ben