Were you drinking wine from Argentina
Or Indonesian coffee
Did you take some in a plane
And go fly across the country
Did you go to work the next week
Drive your daily twenty miles
Stop off at Sears to see
The latest Chinese styles
When you did these things
Did you wonder how or why
In the years before the oil wells ran dry
Were you watching the news
Did you wonder when
They’d bomb another country
Or start up the draft again
As you tried to stop the war
That might decide the planet’s fate
Did you stop to question
How that food got on your plate
As you stuck your fork
Into that slice of pie
In the years before the oil wells ran dry
When you went back to college
To get another PhD
Or you went into the studio
To record one more CD
Did it occur to you
That your time might be spent better
Digging in the earth
Or learning to knit a sweater
Did you prepare for all the changes
Or at least pretend to try
In the years before the oil wells ran dry
When the cars and planes stopped running
And the dollar hit the floor
And the hordes of hungry children
Were knocking on your door
When unemployed men in the streets said
Blame the Arabs for our plight
Did you shout with dirt held high
"Farmers of the world unite"
Did you ride an ox into town
And say "join the Green Revolution or die"
In the years before the oil wells ran dry.
Or Indonesian coffee
Did you take some in a plane
And go fly across the country
Did you go to work the next week
Drive your daily twenty miles
Stop off at Sears to see
The latest Chinese styles
When you did these things
Did you wonder how or why
In the years before the oil wells ran dry
Were you watching the news
Did you wonder when
They’d bomb another country
Or start up the draft again
As you tried to stop the war
That might decide the planet’s fate
Did you stop to question
How that food got on your plate
As you stuck your fork
Into that slice of pie
In the years before the oil wells ran dry
When you went back to college
To get another PhD
Or you went into the studio
To record one more CD
Did it occur to you
That your time might be spent better
Digging in the earth
Or learning to knit a sweater
Did you prepare for all the changes
Or at least pretend to try
In the years before the oil wells ran dry
When the cars and planes stopped running
And the dollar hit the floor
And the hordes of hungry children
Were knocking on your door
When unemployed men in the streets said
Blame the Arabs for our plight
Did you shout with dirt held high
"Farmers of the world unite"
Did you ride an ox into town
And say "join the Green Revolution or die"
In the years before the oil wells ran dry.
Contributed by Riccardo Venturi - 2006/1/7 - 23:43
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Lyrics and music by David Rovics
From David Rovics' Official Website
Here are fifteen songs I wrote between January and July,
2005. I recorded them at Sugar Hill in Houston with John Griffin on the board on the afternoon of July 28th. I guess there's another bunch of songs here which are continuing the ecological theme that was heavily represented in Beyond the Mall (and to one degree or another in all of my other recordings). Some of the songs are definitely inspired by the musical sensibilies of TV Smith ("Crashing Down," "Boardroom," "Before the Oil Wells Run Dry," "Waiting For The Fall"). I don't know if any of these songs approach TV's brilliance at writing stuff with great universality to it, nor whether the melodies are as catchy as his, but in any case, his music has been a focus for my own songwriting over the past couple months.
David Rovics.