Album: Bedtime for Democracy, by Dead Kennedys, 1986

Cesspools In Eden

Poison is bubbling
Beneath your dreamhome
Buried there years before

Kid runs in crying
From playing in the garden
Mommy, I burned my hands!

What's making our eyes so itchy?
Don't rub 'em-they'll swell up.

Oh Oh Oh Oh
It's the big waste dump
Oh, yeah

We built your ticky-tacky houses
On landfill soil
To cover up a gift
We left you years before

Of toxic chemicals
And leaking gas
Just dig a little while,
You'll find our acid baths

Cesspools
In Eden
Oozing away:

Groundwater's poisoned
Air stings like hell
The lines for doctors grow long

Over martinis
The company laughs
We don't owe you one damn thing.

But what about all these fainting spells?
How'd you like a lick
From my open sores

And Oh:.Oh Oh Oh -
Why are our babies stillborn?

A storage tank's leaking
It's about to explode
Why evacuate
When you can watch the fun

Nothing happens here
Get out the lawn chairs
We'll drink pink lemonade
And watch Martinez burn

Cesspools
In Eden
Oozing away
Cesspools in Eden
Leak by the day

The land we sold you
Is right atop our acid pits
We fill them by the truckload
In the dead of night

There's thousands more toxic
Tips of the iceberg
We pay a little bribe
Or we just don't report them

And see what you get-
Cesspools
In Eden
In Eden
No accident-
Just a little of our greed-fueled negligence

So you've found the proof why
Your cancer rate's shot up
But whatcha gonna do
When we've got all the cards

Times Beach, Rocky Flats,
Love Canal & Bhopal
Merry Christmas, hostages
From the folks who care

Cesspools in Eden
Oozing away
Cesspools in Eden
Leak by the day
Cesspools in Eden
Have a nice day


A song about Love Canal case in USA: A place that was used as toxic disposal and later was sold as residential area. Many serious health hazards occurred among unsuspected residents. Jello Biafra makes a connection concerning economical purposes with the never justified victims of toxic tragedy in Bhopal and also with other mass toxic hazards in USA: Times Bleach and the atomic weapon factory Rocky Flats. You can read in wikipedia about all these environmental disasters below

Bhopal
Love Canal
Times Beach
Rocky Flats


Hop With The Jet Set

I say, come on!
To pleasures unknown
Where we fly to when we are all bored
C'mon for the ride
And hop with the jet set tonight

We'll sun ourselves red down in Montego Bay
Hotel-hired guards keep the natives away

We wanna save the whales
We'll go watch them feed,
Buzz around them in boats
'Til they won't breed
Just here for the ride
Then we hop with the jet set tonight

Check out them Indians' ancestral art
Some of that would look cute up on our walls
Yeah, suit it just fine
When you hop with the jet set tonight

We'll hire out some poachers to go steel their dolls
Who cares if they're sacred-they look awful cute

National Geographic found a stone age tribe
Let's feed them their first hot dogs on film
Won't that be a prize
To show the jet set tonight

Aren't they cute, aren't they pure:
Muse subscribers back home
Next weekend the junta exterminates them

Back home by the sea at our outdoor cafe
Our chameleon tongues catch the flies in the air

An interesting song about the prodigal vices of Jet-set people who use natural and cultural environment of the planet as disposable consuming items to waste their time and “heal” their boredom. Today this song continues to be topical because of the destruction of natural and protected environments for luxurious tourist and wasteful use of water golf accommodations (Greek nature and local society will suffer a lot by such future plans of “development”), or sex tourism who keeps alive sexual abuse of young women and children in SE Asia.

You can hear these songs in youtube

Cesspools In Eden

Hop With The Jet Set