I saw this incredible song, “Bye, bye Lehman Brothers and I” to be sung to Don Mclean’s American Pie on FT’s alphaville — but it was missing several verses.

I thought I’d finish it up:

Helter skelter in the banking sector
The 40th floor needs parachutes and ejectors
We’re eight miles high and falling fast
Soon we’ll land foul on the grass
The Fed hopes this will all just pass
With the treasury buying CDOs at last

Now the mid-week air was sweet perfume
While the hedge funds played a shorting tune
We all prepared to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance!
‘cause the sell-shorts orders in the field
Covered Friday, SEC we yield!
Do you recall free markets repealed
The week the IB died?

I was saying,
Bye, bye, Lehman Brothers and I,
Needed credit to get better but the credit was dry,
Hank Paulson’s Fed had carved up the pie,
Saying, AIG’s too big to die,
AIG is too big to die…

Oh, and there we were frozen in place,
Our option models lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on: traders be nimble, quants be quick!
Chris Cox sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the devil’s only friend

Oh, and with Cox’s face on CNBC’s stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No trader before the bell
Could break that satan’s spell
And as ops worked late into the night
To make sure all our positions were right
I saw satan laughing with delight
The week the IB died

I was saying,
Bye, bye, Lehman Brothers and I,
Needed credit to get better but the credit was dry,
Hank Paulson’s Fed had carved up the pie,
Saying, AIG’s too big to die,
AIG is too big to die…

I saw a girl wearing Merrill blue
And I asked her for some BofA news
But she was in no mood to play
I went down to Lehman’s company store
Where I’d bought a green hat years before
But the man there said I should just go away

And on wall street: the specialists screamed
The first years cried and recruiters schemed
But not a word was spoken
The market makers were broken
And the three men I admire the most
By Ken Griffin all were poached
They knew our strategy was toast
The week the IB died

I was saying,
Bye, bye, Lehman Brothers and I,
Needed credit to get better but the credit was dry,
Hank Paulson’s Fed had carved up the pie,
Saying, AIG’s too big to die,
AIG is too big to die…

They were saying,
Bye, bye, Lehman Brothers and I,
Needed credit to get better but the credit was dry,
Hank Paulson’s Fed had carved up the pie,
Saying, AIG’s too big to die,
AIG is too big to die…