Digital Tradition Mirror

Garbage

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Garbage
(Bill Steele)

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 grinds and sardine tins
Till the truck comes by on Friday and carts it all away
And a thousand trucks just like it are converging on the Bay

  Garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage
  What will we do when there's no place left
  To put all the garbage

Mr. Thompson starts his Cadillac and winds it up 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
While the sun looks down upon it with its ultraviolet tongues
Till it turns to smog and settles down and ends up in our lungs
  Garbage, garbage
  We're filling up the air 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 down with
  evening news
While the kids do homework with the TV in one ear
While Superman for the thousandths time sell sexy 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

  Garbage, garbage
  We're filling up our minds with garbage
  Garbage, garbage
  What will we do when there's nothing left to hear
  And there's nothing left to read
  And there's nothing left to wear
  And there's nothing left to need
  And there's nothing left to talk about
  And there's nothing to walk upon
  And there's nothing left to care about
  And there's nothing left to do
  And there's nothing left to see
  And there's nothing left to be but garbage

In Mister Thompson's factory, they're making plastic Christmas trees
Complete with silver tinsel and a geodisic 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 the question, they say, "Why don't you see?
It's absolutely needed for the economy!"

Oh, Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!
There stocks and their bonds -- all garbage!
Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!
What will they do when their system goes to smash
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There's no value to their cash
There's no money to be made
But there's a world to be repaid
Their kids will read in history books
'Bout 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
Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!

Copyright 1969, The Rainbow Collection Ltd. (BMI)
   All rights reserved
SOF

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!