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[hamlet]

Request - Global Warming poem lyrics

Does anyone have the lyrics to the song or poem about Global Warming?

[Will Oldham]

I've only heard it once and I wasn't recording, but that would be great!
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www.myspace.com/will_oldham_horror

[jefflewis]

"My Back Pages" done as a Global Warming Parasong (By Robert Simmer-man, AKA Jeffrey Lewis).

Way back when In 1910
The snow fell deep and wide
From the Throgs Neck Bridge
Down to Bay Ridge
And o'er the Lo'er East Side
Grandparents
In tenements
The winter froze, and how!
But it was somewhat colder then, it's warmer than that now.

In '22
The cold wind blew
When January came.
To hear them say it,
January today is
May by another name.
You'd freeze your ass
Till winter'd pass
Each day for weeks they'd plow
But it was somewhat colder then, it's warmer than that now.

In '45
You couldn't drive
In March through the Borscht Belt.
If they saw today,
I'm sure they'd say
"It's a leibendichavelt!"
We have it easy,
It's warm and breezy
But it seems wrong somehow
That it was somewhat colder then, and it's warmer than that now.

Every man
With a spray can
Will tell you that it's cool.
"The ozone ain't hurt
By my paint squirt
And this hairspray's minuscule."
But add them up
And then look up;
The ozone's saying "ow"
And it was somewhat colder then, it's warmer than that now.

By '60s times
The warming climes
Alarmed environmentalists.
Whether in sandals
With beards and candles
Or university scientists.
From the far-out margin
To the mainstream jargon,
One idea with strength they would endow:
That it was somewhat colder then, and it's warmer than that now.

"It's basically fine"
Went the Industry's line
That their lobbyists fed us.
But shrinking iceberg size
Don’t tell no lies
And I don't mean iceberg lettuce.
But can they admit
That they're full of shit?
No! They'd sooner make out with Chairman Mao
Than explain why it was somewhat colder then, and it's warmer than that now.

More and more malls
And aerosols
And smokestacks of industry
It's simple math
And you don't have
To be the type who'd hug a tree.
But still the CEO
Said "let it go,"
As he mopped his sopping brow,
"So what if it was colder then, and it's warmer than that now?"

In Hollywood
The air was good
But by the '70s was wrecked.
The highway smog
Through which they slog
Is no special effect.
By the time Chewbacca
Is an altecaca
He'll wish they'd kept it down
and admitted that it was somewhat colder then, and it's warmer than that now.

By '83
There seemed to be
A pattern clearly forming.
As the record book
Began to cook
They dubbed it "Global Warming."
Is it a natural shift
Or a man-made apocalypse?
The debate continues to sprout
About why it was somewhat colder then, and it's warmer than that now.

That the proof is clear
From year to year
Means naught to such as we.
When Europe caved
'Neath a heat wave
We said "Just get A.C.;
Regulations
of corporations
Drops dollars off the Dow.
So what if it was colder then, and it's warmer than that now?"

Now in these mad flood scenes
From New Orleans
Who knows what part was played
By distant icecaps, Ozone gaps
And creeping Centigrade?
The thing that's sure
Is nature's pure;
No games will it allow.
And that it was somewhat colder then, and it's warmer than that now.

We laugh at tribal chiefs
With quaint beliefs
We're smart and scientific.
The Western Civ In which we live
Is turning out terrific.
We say "superstition blind We've left behind," But Profit is our sacred cow;
And that cow don't care if it's cooked medium-rare and that it's warmer than that now.

(This was written for Tuli (Fugs) Kupferberg's latest edition of his "Mockingbird" zine, Tuli's ongoing project since the 60s to collect "parasongs" or popular songs rewritten to have politcal and/or satirical lyrics.)

[hamlet]

Thanks Jeff. I wanted it for Tuli but I'm glad everybody got to see it. Today is the perfect day to think about this. Whew.

[Will Oldham]

I hadn't noticed we'd had a reply on this, I've been sifting through the old lyrics posts and noticed it and I'm glad I did, Cheers Jeff!
_________________


www.myspace.com/will_oldham_horror