Garbage (Pete Seeger)

Garbage!
**********
by Bill Steele in 1969, (with the last verse and chorus added by Pete Seeger.)


Mister Thompson calls the waiter, orders steak and baked potato
(Then) he leaves the bone and gristle and he never eats the skin
The busboy comes and takes it, with a cough contaminates it
(And he) puts it in a can with coffee grounds and sardine tins
And the truck comes by on Friday and carts it all away
A thousand trucks just like it are converging on the Bay

Oh, Garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage
We're filling up the seas with garbage
What will we do when there's no place left
To put all the garbage

Mr. Thompson starts his Cadillac and winds it down the freeway track
Leaving friends and neighbors in a hydrocarbon haze
He's joined by lots of smaller cars all sending gases to the stars
There to form a seething cloud that hangs for thirty days
And the sun licks down into it with an ultraviolet tongue
(Till it) turns to smog and then it settles in our lungs

Oh, Garbage, garbage
We're filling up the sky with garbage
Garbage, garbage
What will we do, when there's nothing left to breathe but garbage

Getting home and taking off his shoes he settles with the evening news
While the kids do homework with the TV in one ear
While Superman for thousandth's time sell talking dolls and conquers crime
(They) dutifully learn the date of birth of Paul Revere
In the paper there's a piece about the mayor's middle name
(And) he gets it done in time to watch the all-star bingo game

Oh, Garbage
We're filling up our minds with garbage
What will we do when there's nothing left to read
And there's nothing left to need
there's nothing left to watch
there's nothing left to touch
there's nothing left to walk upon
and nothing left to ponder on
nothing left to see
and nothing left to be but garbage

In Mr. Thompson's factory they're making plastic Christmas trees
Complete with silver tinsel and a geodesic stand
The plastic's mixed in giant vats, from some conglomeration that's
been piped from deep within the Earth, or strip-mined from the land
And if you ask them questions they say "why don't you see?
It's absolutely needed for the economy."

Oh, garbage, garbage, garbage
Their stocks and their bonds all garbage
What will they do when their system go to smash
there's no value to their cash
there's no money to be made
that there's a world to be repaid
their kids will read in history book
about financiers and other crooks
and feudalism and slavery
and nukes and all their knavery
To history's dustbin they're consigned,
along with many other kinds of garbage

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• garbage
• Pete
• Seeger
• Earth
• Day
• Trash
• Polution
• Smog
• Television
• Factory
• WTO
• Enviroment
• World
• Green

[FieryLocks]

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish caught will we realize that we cannot eat money.

Cree Indian Proverb

[PetePuma00]

When I first heard this song in 3rd grade, it left a huge impression on me.

Thank you for the reminder. We need to act fast.

[CrawdaddyJoe]

Does anyone have chords?

[millardstorm]

I had an opiffiny...

[MrAwsomeguy2000]

@BlackSabbath84

Umm EXCUSE ME! Al Gore is a person who cares about the environment

[Orthodoxcrusader]

@brocklucas

There's nothing wrong with production...

But the culture of needless mass production designed to accommodate mass consumerism followed by planned obsolescence(waste of resources in it's most absurd) doesn't seem to have good prospects for the future in the world where resources are less and less, day by day...

We DO have enough food for instance to feed the planet; yet some parts of the world are strawing while the other throw several tons of food per household on annual level...

[rounds1954]

What I would expect from "Stalin's Songbird" Capitalism is going to exploit everyone, and surprise the solution is socialism, where the politically powerful hold all the wealth.

[brocklucas]

Excuse if I missed something, but did xygomorphic really just suggest that we are brainwashed by the government to believe that our system of economics and politics, pretty much our whole culture of production, is entirely unsustainable... so that they can gain more power? He must have been being ironic...

It drives me crazy that everybody associates environmentalism (or should I say sanity) with Al Gore. That guys an idiot.

[explosivejohnny]

what a crazy man. this is disturbing :)

[sleepyaardvark]

not necessary, I come on youtube stack on alot of videos and read while I listen. Get to listen to so much music otherwise would miss and still have my book.