Pete Seeger - Garbage lyrics

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