Neil Young - The monsanto years, album (2015)

"Monsanto Years"

You never know what the future holds in the shallow soil of Monsanto, Monsanto

The moon is full and the seeds are sown while the farmer toils for Monsanto, Monsanto

When these seeds rise they're ready for the pesticide

And Roundup comes and brings the poison tide of Monsanto, Monsanto

The farmer knows he's got to grow what he can sell, Monsanto, Monsanto

So he signs a deal for GMOs that makes life hell with Monsanto, Monsanto

Every year he buys the patented seeds

Poison-ready they're what the corporation needs, Monsanto

When you shop for your daily bread and walk the aisles of Safeway, Safeway

Find the package to catch your eye that makes you smile at Safeway, at Safeway

Choose a picture of an old red barn on a field of green

With the farmer and his wife and children to complete the scene at Safeway, at Safeway

Dreams of the past come flooding back to the farmer's mind, his mother and father

Family seeds they used to save were gifts from God, not Monsanto, Monsanto

Their own child grows ill near the poisoned crops

While they work on, they can't find an easy way to stop, Monsanto, Monsanto

Don't care now what the Bible said so long ago not Monsanto, Monsanto

Give us this day our daily bread and let us not go with Monsanto, Monsanto

The seeds of life are not what they once were

Mother Nature and God don't own them anymore

The Monsanto Years is the thirty-sixth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, released on June 29, 2015 on Reprise Records. A concept album criticizing agribusiness Monsanto, the album is a collaboration with Willie Nelson's sons Lukas and Micah, alongside Lukas' bandmates in Promise of the Real.

"A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop"

If you don't like to rock Starbucks A coffee shop

Well you better change your station 'cause that ain't all that we got

Yeah, I want a cup of coffee but I don't want a GMO

I like to start my day off without helping Monsanto

Monnnnnn-sannnnnn-toooooooo

Let our farmers grow what they want to grow

From the fields of Nebraska to the banks of the Ohio

The farmers won't be free to grow what they want to grow

When corporate control takes over the American farm

With fascist politicians and chemical giants walking arm in arm

Monnnnnn-sannnnnn-toooooooo

Let our farmers grow what they want to grow

When the people of Vermont wanted to label food with GMOs

So that they could find out what was in what the farmer grows

Monsanto and Starbucks through the Grocery Manufacturers Alliance

They sued the state of Vermont to overturn the people's will

Monnnnnn-sannnnnn-toooooooo (and Starbucks)

Mothers want to know what they feed their children

Monnnnnn-sannnnnn-toooooooo

Let our farmers grow what they want to grooooooow

"A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop" is a protest song aimed at Starbucks and Monsanto recorded by Neil Young that has attracted world-wide attention. It is a criticism of Starbucks. It's about Starbucks and its alleged use of GM food. The lyrics include "I want a cup of coffee but I don't want a GMO," Young sings. "I'd like to start my day off without helping Monsanto." In the song there were references to the lawsuit by Monsanto which is against Vermont because the state and its attempt to pass a GMO labeling law. It also mentions “the poison tide of Monsanto” and about a farmer who signs a GMO deal. In a brief review on the song, Stephan Schmidt of The National in the Singles Roundup said: The album’s opening track, A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop, does not pull any punches, attacking Starbucks as well as Monsanto and suggesting Young has not lost his appetite for tackling the big issues of the moment

An acoustic version of the song was debuted in Maui, Hawaii by Young and his backing band called The Promise of The Real. The reason for it being done there was to bring to attention the attention to Monsanto’s destructive practices in Hawaii. Paul Towers of the Pesticide Action Network said that Hawaii was the global epicenter for GMO seed testing.

"Morning dew" by Bonnie Dobson, Album: At Folk City (1962)

Walk me out in the morning dew, my honey
Walk me out in the morning dew today
I can't walk you out in the morning dew, my honey
I can't walk you out in the morning dew at all

Thought I heard a young girl crying, mama
Thought I heard a young girl cry today
Oh I did not hear no young girl crying, mama, mama, mama
I did not hear no young girl cry at all

Thought I heard a young boy crying
I thought I heard a young boy cry today
Oh I did not hear no young boy crying
Oh I didn't hear no young boy cry
Now there is no more morning dew
Now there is no more morning dew

What they've been saying all these years was not true
Now there is no more morning dew
No, no, no, no more - no, no, no, no more
No more morning dew
No more morning dew

"Morning Dew", also known as "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew", is a post-apocalyptic folk-rock song written by Canadian singer Bonnie Dobson in 1962. According to Dobson in a 1993 interview, "Morning Dew" was inspired by the 1959 film "On the Beach": The story is set in a then future 1964, in the months following World War III. The conflict has devastated the northern hemisphere, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout and killing all life. While the bombs were confined to the northern hemisphere, air currents are slowly carrying the fallout to south. The only areas still habitable are in the far southern hemisphere, like Australia.... The song was covered many times by famous artists like Jeff Beck, Robert Plant, Nazareth, Grateful Dead, etc. (wikipedia)

You can hear this song in many versions:

Original by Bonnie Dobson

Jeff Beck

Grateful Dead

Nazareth

Robert Plant

"The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie" by Billy Bragg (2006)

In memory of the innocent victims of the fascist state of Israel who commits genocide in Gaza and to the innocent victims of the pirate murderous military assault on the ship to Gaza shipment of humanitarian help.

An Israeli bulldozer killed poor Rachel Corrie
As she stood in its path in the town of Rafah
She lost her young life in an act of compassion
Trying to protect the poor people of Gaza
Whose homes are destroyed by tank shells and bulldozers
And whose plight is exploited by suicide bombers
Who kill in the name of the people of Gaza
But Rachel Corrie believed in non-violent resistance
Put herself in harm's way as a shield of the people
And paid with her life in a manner most brutal

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain't the time for your tears.

Rachel Corrie had 23 years
She was born in the town of Olympia, Washington
A skinny, messy, list-making chain-smoker
Who volunteered to protect the Palestinian people
Who had become non-persons in the eyes of the media
So that people were suffering and no one was seeing
Or hearing or talking or caring or acting
And the horrible math of the awful equation
That brought Rachel Corrie into this confrontation
Is that the spilt blood of a single American
Is worth more than the blood of a hundred Palestinians

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain't the time for your tears.

The artistic director of a New York theatre
Cancelled a play based on Rachel's writings
But she wasn't a bomber or a killer or fighter
But one who acted in the spirit of the Freedom Riders
Is there no place for a voice in America
That doesn't conform to the Fox News agenda?
Who believes in non-violence instead of brute force
Who is willing to confront the might of an army
Whose passionate beliefs were matched by her bravery
The question she asked rings out round the world
If America is truly the beacon of freedom
Then how can it stand by while they bring down the curtain
And turn Rachel Corrie into a non-person?

Oh, but you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears.

Rachel Corrie went to Gaza to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians, whose voice is seldom heard in her country, the US. That she herself should be silenced -- first by an Israeli bulldozer, next by a New York theatre cancelling a play created from her words -- is a testimony to the power of her message. This song was written on a plane on March 20 and recorded at Big Sky Recordings, Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 22. The tune is borrowed from Bob Dylan.

You can hear this song in youtube and you can download it for free HERE, where is the site the lyrics and other information were obtained.

El Condor Pasa (If I could) by Simon/Garfunkel, Album: Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)

I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes i would, if i could, i surely would
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes i would, if i only could, i surely would

Away, i'd rather sail away
Like a swan that's here and gone
A man gets tied up to the ground
He gives the world its saddest sound
Its saddest sound

I'd rather be a forest than a street
Yes i would, if i could, i surely would
I'd rather feel the earth beneath my feet
Yes i would, if i only could, i surely would

A song, not directly environmental, but singer's wishes seems to be inspired by the monotonous urban environment he lives and his feelings to escape away from the everyday routine he is forced to live in. Especially the verse "I'd rather be a forest than a street" shows the huge difference of an environment full of life and variation in contrast with the monotonous paved street full of cars and pollution.

The song was an old traditional peruvian song and the artists took the music and put their completely different lyrics. They faced some foolish problems with copyright, because someone else, many decades before, has re-written the music of the song in the version Simon-Garfunkel heard it for the first time, and his descendants went them to court.

You can hear this song in youtube

"Eclipse" by John Denver, Album: Back Home Again (1974)

The sun is slowly fading in the western sky
Sometimes it takes forever for the day to end
Sometimes it takes a lifetime
Sometimes I think I’ll never see the sun again

In the east a shaded moon is hanging lazily
I do believe I saw the old man smile
I do believe I did
I do believe he’s been hanging all the while

I think its kind of interesting the way things get to be
The way that people work with their machines
Serenity’s a long time coming to me
The fact I don’t believe I know what it means

There’s a heavy smog between me and my mountains
Its enough to make a grown man sit and cry
Its enough to make you wonder
Its enough to make the world roll up and die

I think its kind of interesting the way things get to be
The way that people work with their machines
Serenity’s a long time coming to me
The fact I don’t believe I know what it means any more

When the sun is slowly fading in the western sky
Sometimes it takes forever the day to end
Sometimes it takes a lifetime
Sometimes I think I’ll never see the sun again
Sun again

This song is about the smoggy polluted atmosphere in urban environments. As a J. Denver's fan wrote:

Eclipse features a clarinet and a percussion whose sound resembles that of a clock pendulum. The lyrics illustrate the negative effects of industrial emissions not only on the Earth but also on the narrator. As the sun gradually sets, he realizes that the smoggy air eclipses his view of the mountains. Sometimes he fears he'll "never see the sun again," perhaps due to air thick enough with pollution to block the sun. “it's enough to make the world roll up and die”.

You can hear this song in youtube

"Poor Worms" by Malvina Reynolds (1971)

Being people isn't all that it's cracked up to be,
But soon this problem will be solved for me,
I'll be worms, worms, worms,

Wiggley, woggley,
Googley, goggley worms.

I wonder how the worms will like the D.D.T.
And the bitter flavor in the taste of me,
Poor worms, worms, worms.

Wiggley, woggley,
Googley, goggley worms.

The cement and the bottles that I left behind,
They'll be tough to eat and mighty hard to grind,
Poor worms, worms, worms.

Wiggley, woggley,
Googley, goggley worms.

The birds will eat the worms and then the birds will fly,
And soon you'll hear me singing up there in the sky,
Goodbye, goodbye.

Wiggley, woggley,
Googley, goggley worms.

A sarcastic song that talks about the poisons and non decomposable wastes that are released to nature by humans. We'll be soon end up being eaten by worms in the recycling natural process, but poisons will destroy natural balances and unrecycled litters will be added to the piles of waste of next generations.

You can hear a Malvina's song here

"Windsong" by John Denver, album: Windsong(1975)

The wind is the whisper of our mother the earth
The wind is the hand of our father the sky
The wind watches over our struggles and pleasures
The wind is the goddess who first learned to fly

The wind is the bearer of bad and good tidings
The weaver of darkness, the bringer of dawn
The wind gives the rain, then builds us a rainbow
The wind is the singer when sang the first song

The wind is a twister of anger and warning
The wind brings the fragrance of freshly mown hay
The wind is a racer, a wild stallion running
The sweet taste of love on a slow summers day

The wind knows the songs of the cities and canyons
The thunder of mountains, the roar of the sea
The wind is the taker and giver of mornings
The wind is the symbol of all that is free

So welcome the wind and the wisdom she offers
Follow her summons when she calls again
In your heart and your spirit let the breezes surround you
Lift up your voice then and sing with the wind

We read about this song here:

Windsong is a taken from the album of the same name and is about communing with nature, a tribute to the natural force and quality of the wind. “The wind is the symbol of all that is free”

You can hear this song in youtube

"No Town" by Malvina Reynolds (1965)

This is no town, no town,
This is no town.

Well I don't know the people next door,
Maybe I never saw them before.
No one belongs in this old place,
A lot of houses in empty space.

This is no town, no town,
This is no town.

Town is a place where you lived and grew,
And things around there mean something to you.
But this old place means nothing to me
But a big no job misery.

This is no town, no town,
This is no town.

A town is a place that begins and ends,
You know your friends and your daddy's friends,
And the guy that runs the grocery store
Lives round the corner or right next door, but

This is no town, no town,
This is no town.

A town is a place where you belong,
Somebody cares if you're right or wrong,
Somebody cares if you live or die,
If they can't help you maybe they try, but

This is no town, no town,
This is no town.

A description of the dehumanising and alienating modern urban environment, deprived of real human relations, solidarity, care of our neighbours, control of our lives, and any social value that characterized the lost world of smaller towns and citizenship, as included in the ancient greek term of "polis". We read in wikipedia:

The first form of citizenship was based on the way people lived in the ancient Greek times, in small-scale organic communities of the polis. In those days citizenship was not seen as a public matter, separated from the private life of the individual person. The obligations of citizenship were deeply connected into one’s everyday life in the polis. To be truly human, one had to be an active citizen to the community, which Aristotle famously expressed: “To take no part in the running of the community's affairs is to be either a beast or a god!” This form of citizenship was based on obligations of citizens towards the community, rather than rights given to the citizens of the community. This was not a problem because they all had a strong affinity with the polis; their own destiny and the destiny of the community were strongly linked. Also, citizens of the polis saw obligations to the community as an opportunity to be virtuous, it was a source of honour and respect. In Athens, citizens were both ruler and ruled, important political and judicial offices were rotated and all citizens had the right to speak and vote in the political assembly.

Big cities of today are constructed and organized not to fulfill the true natural human needs and quality of life, but the needs of of market and economy for quick and effective transportation of products and robot-like clockwork and alienated workers.

You can hear a related song by Malvina "Little Boxes" in youtube

Photo was taken from www.reconnaissanceart.com

«...And the Earth Shall be Holy» by Ragnarok (UK), album: To Mend The Oaken Heart (1996)

Tears for the sunrise, witness of the dawn,
awakens the sleeper from his rest, still and warm.
Alone he greets the morning, blinks the light from his eyes,
turns his face from the vision, to the gods he cries,
"Why have you forsaken me enslaved to the unknown?
These years of savage plague have left me scarred like ancient stone".

Nerthus, Nerthus I cry for thee, mine eyes burn, sorrows grieve.
The holy fires of Hel have never crimsoned such as these.
Gods of death fathered the children, see them rise.
Midst the paling corn, the priest dances deiseil no more.
The scythe is raised, it can only fall.

Witness of the morning wipe thy moisty eyes.
Tis time no more for grieving, time for gods to rise.
The corn grows pale and yellow, scythe is honed and sharp,
Hunting-moon will waxen as the days grow dark.
Now the quick must fall as leaves drop silently from trees,
and, cold and still, push up their mounds into the Autumn breeze.

Mankind, mankind I cry for thee, mine eyes burn, sorrows grieve.
The holy fires of Hel have never crimsoned such as these.
Gods of death fathered the children, see them rise.
Midst the paling corn, the priest dances deiseil no more.
The scythe is raised, it can only fall.

With plaited limbs of golden stalks, the ben holds the spirit of the corn.
Awaits the Spring, her naked body stripped of emerald, buried, shall be reborn.

With golden spears and plumed heads, the master race believed invincible,
but gold must bend before the scythe or else to break, to fall so cold and still.

And the Earth shall be holy once more.

Waiting the season in endless time, I've seen the sunrise and She was mine.
No more confusion, darkness brings light; gods are awakened, now they will fight.
Mankind warned so many times by vision, word and deed.
As corn you grew so tall and strong, but now you've gone to seed.

Abred, Abred I cry for thee, mine eyes burn, sorrows grieve.
The holy fires of Hel have never crimsoned such as these.
Gods of death fathered the children, see them rise.
Midst the paling corn, the priest dances deiseil no more.
The scythe is raised, it can only fall.

Mother Earth’s abuse and human feeling of superiority in a pagan orientated mournful song about Mother Earth-Humans relation. You can hear some songs from this band in youtube:
Bonne Waerod We Haeles
To Waelhealle
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi

“Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver, Album: Rocky Mountain High (1972)

He was born in the summer of his 27th year,
coming home to a place he'd never been before.
He left yesterday behind him
you might say he was born again,
might say he found a key for every door.

When he first came to the mountains
His life was far away
on the road and hanging by a song.
But the strings already broken
and he doesn't really care,
it keeps changin' fast, and it don't last for long.

It's a Colorado Rocky Mountain High,
I've seen it raining fire in the sky
The shadows from the starlight are softer than a lullabye.
Rocky Mountain High, ...in Colorado....
Rocky Mountain High.

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below,
saw everything as far as you can see.
And they say that he got crazy once and that he
tried to touch the sun,
and he lost a friend, but kept the memory.

Now he walks in quiet solitude, the forest and the stream,
seeking grace in every step he takes,
his sight is turned inside himself, to try and
understand, the serenity of a clear blue mountain lake.

And the Colorado Rocky Mountain High,
I've seen it raining fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply.
Rocky Mountain High, ....in Colorado....
Rocky Mountain High.

Now his life is full of wonder,
but his heart still knows some fear,
of the simple things he can not comprehend.
Why they try to tear the mountains down
to bring in a couple more.
More people, more scars upon the land.

It's the Colorado Rocky Mountain High,
I've seen it raining fire in the sky
I know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an Eagle fly
Rocky mountain high
It's the Colorado Rocky Mountain High,
I've seen it raining fire in the sky.
Friend around the camp fire and everybody's high....
Rocky Mountain High, Rocky Mountain High,

A song about a man who goes to live in nature and especially in a mountainous area, where he lives a new spiritual condition: the relation with nature, but he realizes that humans not only cause destruction to this wildlife, but even as tourists and visitors. More people, more scars upon the land. A similar view is expressed in his similar song we have already presented Rocky Mountain Suite.

You can hear this song in youtube

"World On Fire" by Sarah McLachlan, Album: Afterglow (2003)

Hearts are worn in these dark ages
You're not alone in this story's pages
The light has fallen amongst the living and the dying
And I'll try to hold it in, yeah I'll try to hold it in

The world's on fire and
It's more than I can handle
I'll tap into the water
(Try and bring my share)
I try to bring more
More than I can handle
(Bring it to the table)
Bring what I am able

I watch the heavens but I find no calling
Something I can do to change what's coming
Stay close to me while the sky is falling
Don't wanna be left alone, don't wanna be alone

Hearts break, hearts mend
Love still hurts
Visions clash, planes crash
Still there's talk of
Saving souls, still the cold
Is closing in on us

We part the veil on our killer sun
Stray from the straight line on this short run
The more we take, the less we become
The fortune of one that means less for some

A melancholic song about world situation. It was performed in a very interesting video clip with a clever message about our consuming expenses, usually spending large amounts for useless things. We read in wikipedia about this video clip:

The video for "World on Fire" opens with the claim of having cost $150,000, despite the ensuing low-quality footage of McLachlan in a plain room playing her guitar. The video continues to reveal it actually cost $15, then tracking (in animated and videotaped segments) how the remainder went to enriching lives all around the globe through charity donations.
The eleven charitable organizations McLachlan chose to donate the production costs of the World On Fire are Carolina for Kibera, Comic Relief, CARE USA, DORCAS, Engineers Without Borders (Canada), Help the Aged, Film Aid, War Child, Heifer International, ITDG, and Action Aid.
The video was inspired by a letter from an Engineers Without Borders (Canada) volunteer.

You can see this video clip and hear the song in youtube

Malvina Reynolds' songs against water pollution (1970, 1973)

Clean Water (1970)

Clean water, clean water, clean water.
Mister and Mrs. me and you,
What makes you think our gunk should go,
Out where the sparkling rivers flow,
Down from the mountain heads of snow,
Out to the rolling sea?

Rivers where fish are dancing round
Where ferns and willow trees abound,
And sunny water bugs are found.
Rivers that once were food and home
For fish and ferns and sunny bugs and me.

Clean water, clean water, clean water.
Clean water, clean water, clean water. I cry.
Get that junk and that gunk
Out of my clean water
Before the fish and the sunny bugs all die,
And you and I.



The Fragile Sea (1973)

Our fathers knew the ocean as a friendly enemy,
They took their equal chances in the storm.
They trusted in the sail, they fought the mighty whale,
They played like sunny children on the shore.

Chorus:
The sea, the sea, the fragile sea.
Our source, our provider and our road to liberty.
Now we use it as a dump hole in this mad economy,
And we never will survive a dying sea.

Our sister is the sea bird, our brother is the gar,
The smallest plankton creatures as important as we are.
The chain of life's been moving thru a hundred million years,
We cut it at our peril and the pipeline is the shears.
(Chorus)

Do you see the seagull dead in his integument of tar
Who was once a soaring creature of the sky?
It's the oil company that's now the ruler of the sea
That makes ocean and its children fail and die.

(Chorus)
Have you seen the crystal waters of the North Canadian coast?
That's how this planet's oceans used to be.
With our muscle and our brain we must make it so again,
For we never will survive a dying sea.

It's impressive how clear view has an old woman and in early seventies about environmental ploblems and extensive contamination hazards that will become huge the following years in many places in her country. Sewage or dumping of toxic waste near rivers or underground water poisoned residential areas (Woburn, Hinkley, Love Canal, etc), Exxon Valdez disaster eliminated the once "crystal waters of the North Canadian Coasts" and many others.

you can hear her most famous song "little boxes" performed by Pete Seeger in youtube

Eagle And The Hawk By John Denver, Album: Aerie (1971)

Ohhhhhh,

I am the Eagle,
I live in high country,
The rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky.

I am the Hawk,
And there's blood on my feathers,
But time is still turning,
They soon will be dry.

And all those who see me,
And all who believe in me,
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly!

Come dance with the west wind,
And touch on the mountain tops,
Sail over the canyons,
And up to the stars.

And reach for the heavens,
And hope for the future,
And all that we can be,
Not just what we are...

A John Denver's fan wrote about this song:

The Eagle And The Hawk was written as a theme song for a documentary The Eagle and the Hawk featuring Morley Nelson an ornithologist. John joined Nelson in a campaign to restore a Red-tailed Hawk and a Bald Eagle back to health. It starts quietly building up to crescendos in imitation of the eagle soaring upwards. “Reach for the heavens, and hope for the future, and all that will be, not what we are”.

You can hear this song in youtube

"Society" by Jerry Hannan, performed by Eddie Vedder (2007)

It's a mistery to me
we have a greed
with which we have agreed

You think you have to want
more than you need
until you have it all you won't be free

society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me

When you want more than you have
you think you need
and when you think more than you want
your thoughts begin to bleed

I think I need to find a bigger place
'cos when you have more than you think
you need more space

society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me

there's those thinking more or less less is more
but if less is more how you're keeping score?
Means for every point you make
your level drops
kinda like its starting from the top
you can't do that...

society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me

society, have mercy on me
I hope you're not angry if I disagree
society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me

A song criticism to the passion of consumerism, a passion that characterizes our society. This feeling of incompleteness when we have anything we want and we are not satisfied. It’s a substancial thing of our social values. The song is included in the soundtrack of the 2007 movie “Into the Wild” about the true story of a young boy Christopher McCandless, who disgusted by these social values, left his in trouble family and his bright academic career and went to live alone in the wild, but unfortunately died by the unpredicted forces of nature.

We also read in another song (Far Behind) from this soundtrack
Empty pockets will allow
a greater sense of wealth
a common philosophy about the differences between the terms "I Need" and "I Want"

You can hear this song, performed by Pearl Jam’s frontman Eddie Vedder who wrote the music of this soundtrack, in youtube and Far Behind

“To the wild country” by John Denver, Album: I Want To Live (1977)

There are times I fear I lose myself
I don’t know who I am
I get caught up in the struggle and the strain
With my back against a stonewall
My finger in the dam
Losin’ strength and goin’ down again

And I take a look around me
My eyes can’t find the sun
There’s nothing wild as far as I can see
Then my heart turns to Alaska
And freedom on the run
I can hear her spirit callin’ me

To the mountains, I can rest there
To the rivers, I will be strong
To the forest, I’ll find peace there
To the wild country, where I belong

Oh, I know some times I worry
On worldly ways and means
And I can see the future killing me
On a misbegotten highway
Of prophecies and dreams
A road to nowhere and eternity

And I know it’s just changes
Yes, and mankind marchin’ on
I know we can’t live in yesterday
But compared to what were losin’
And what it means to me
I’d give my life and throw the rest away

To the mountains, I can rest there
To the rivers, I will be strong
To the forest, I’ll find peace there
To the wild country, where I belong
To the wild country, where I belong

A song written for Alaskan landscape. It's a vision of ecsaping from the frustrating every day life.

You can hear this song in youtube and live here

“Green, green” by New Christy Minstrels, Album: Ramblin' (1963)

Green, green, it's green they say
On the farside of the hill
Green, green, I'm going away
To where the grass is greener still.

Well, I told my mama on the day I was born
Don't you cry when you see I'm gone
You know there ain't no woman gonna settle me down
I just gotta be travelin' on.

Green, green, it's green they say
On the farside of the hill
Green, green, I'm going away
To where the grass is greener still.

Oh, there ain't nobody in this whole wide world
Gonna tell me how to spend my time
I'm just a good lovin' ramblin' man
Say buddy, could you spare me a dime.

Green green it's green they say
On the farside of the hill
Green, green, I'm going away
To where the grass is greener still.

Well, I don't care when the sun goes down
Where I can lay my weary head
Green, green valley or rocky road
It's where I'm gonna make my bed.

Green green it's green they say
On the farside of the hill
Green, green, I'm going away
To where the grass is greener still.

To where the grass is greener still.
To where the grass is greener still...

An escaping to nature song written by Barry McGuire when in his early career was a member of folk band New Christy Minstrels.

You can hear this song in youtube

Album: “Shine” by Joni Mitchell (2007) part 2

If I Had A Heart

Holy war
Genocide
Suicide
Hate and cruelty...
How can this be holy?
If I had a heart I'd cry.

These ancient tales...
The good go to heaven
And the wicked ones burn in hell...
Ring the funeral bells!
If I had a heart I'd cry.

There's just too many people now
Too little land
Much too much desire
You feel so feeble now
It's so out of hand
Big bombs and barbed wire
We've set our lovely sky
Our lovely sky
On fire!

There's just too many people now
And too little land
Too much rage and desire
It makes you feel so feeble now
It's so out of hand-
Big bombs and barbed wire...
Can't you see
Our destiny?
We are making this Earth
Our funeral pyre!

Holy Earth
How can we heal you?
We cover you like a blight...
Strange birds of appetite...
If I had a heart I'd cry.


Earth and humanity suffered from war, hate and overpopulation. We read in wikipedia about this song:

"If I Had a Heart, I'd Cry" is a reaction to the state of the environment and what Mitchell called the current "holy war." In February 2007, The New York Times described the song as "one of the most haunting melodies she has ever written." Of the impetus that inspired her to write the song, Mitchell explained, "My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species. I can't cry about it. In a way I'm inoculated. I've suffered this pain for so long. …The West has packed the whole world on a runaway train. We are on the road to extincting ourselves as a species."

Shine

Oh let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on Wall Street and Vegas
Place your bets
Shine on the fishermen
With nothing in their nets
Shine on rising oceans and evaporating seas
Shine on our Frankenstein technologies
Shine on science
With its tunnel vision
Shine on fertile farmland
Buried under subdivisions

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on the dazzling darkness
That restores us in deep sleep
Shine on what we throw away
And what we keep

Shine on Reverend Pearson
Who threw away
The vain old God
kept Dickens and Rembrandt and Beethoven
And fresh plowed sod
Shine on good earth, good air, good water
And a safe place
For kids to play
Shine on bombs exploding
Half a mile away

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on world-wide traffic jams
Honking day and night
Shine on another asshole
Passing on the right!
Shine on the red light runners
Busy talking on their cell phones
Shine on the Catholic Church
And the prisons that it owns
Shine on all the Churches
They all love less and less
Shine on a hopeful girl
In a dreamy dress

Let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on good humor
Shine on good will
Shine on lousy leadership
Licensed to kill
Shine on dying soldiers
In patriotic pain
Shine on mass destruction
In some God's name!
Shine on the pioneers
Those seekers of mental health
Craving simplicity
They traveled inward
Past themselves...
May all their little lights shine

An overall wish for light as beauty, peace, compassion , logic and environmental awareness to shine to everyone of us. There is a mentioning to the GMO technology, a wish for the involving scientists to realize with what Frankenstein issues they deal with.

You can hear songs from this album in youtube:
If I had a Heart
Shine

Album: “Shine” by Joni Mitchell (2007) part 1

This place

Sparkle on the ocean
Eagle at the top of a tree
Those crazy crows always making a commotion
This land is home to me.

I was talking to my neighbour
He said, "When I get to heaven, if it is not like this,
I'll just hop a cloud and I'm coming right back down here
Back to this heavenly bliss."

You see those lovely hills
They won't be there for long
They're gonna tear 'em down
And sell them to California
Here come the toxic spills
Miners poking all around
When this place looks like a moonscape
Don't say I didn't warn ya...

Money, money, money...
Money makes the trees come down
It makes mountains into molehills
Big money kicks the wide wide world around.

Black bear in the orchard
At night he's in my garbage cans
He's getting so bold but no one wants to shoot him
He's got a right to roam this land.

I feel like Geronimo
I used to be as trusting as Cochise
But the white eyes lies
He's out of whack with nature
And look how far his weapons reach!

Spirit of the water
Give us all the courage and the grace
To make genius of this tragedy unfolding
The genius to save this place.

An awareness for the fate of home nature (beautiful like-heaven landscapes are destined to be eradicated for strip mining, or conversion into building land) by an over-development driven by money and greed. Great song and album by the performer of one of our favourite eco-songs “Big Yellow Taxi”. This song is also included in this album in a more dark version, expressing Mitchell’s disappointment about Nature’s maltreatment all these years after its original release in 1970. Joni Mitchell stated: this song is inspired when they decided to whittle down this mountain behind my sanctuary and sell it to California as gravel for McMansions


Bad Dreams

The cats are in the flower bed
A red hawk rides the sky
I guess I should be happy
Just to be alive...
But we have poisoned everything
And oblivious to it all
The cell phone zombies babble
Through the shopping malls
While condors fall from Indian skies
Whales beach and die in sand...
Bad dreams are good
In the great plan.

You cannot be trusted
Do you even know you're lying
It's dangerous to kid yourself
You go deaf and dumb and blind.
You take with such entitlement.
You give bad attitude.
You have no grace
No empathy
No gratitude

You have no sense of consequence
Oh my head is in my hands...
Bad dreams are good
In the great plan.

Before that altering apple
We were one with everything
No sense of self and other
No self-consciousness.
But now we have to grapple
With our man-made world backfiring
Keeping one eye on our brother's deadly selfishness.

And everyone's a victim!
Nobody's hands are clean.
There's so very little left of wild Eden Earth
So near the jaws of our machines.
We live in these electric scabs.
These lesions once were lakes.
No one knows how to shoulder the blame
Or learn from past mistakes...
So who will come to save the day?
Mighty Mouse?
Superman?
Bad dreams are good in the great plan.


Pollution threatens humans, animal life and landscapes, but nobody seems to care, about our future, about our mistakes in the past,...


Strong and wrong

Strong and wrong you win--
Only because
That's the way its always been.
Men love war!
That's what history' s for.
History...
A mass--murder mystery...
His story

Strong and wrong
You lose everything
Without the heart
You need
To hear a robin sing
Where have all the songbirds gone?
Gone!
All I hear are crows in flight
Singing might is right
Might is right!

Oh the dawn of man comes slow
Thousands of years
And here we are...
Still worshiping
Our own ego

Strong and wrong
What is God's will?
Onward Christian soldiers...
Or thou shall not kill...
Men love war!
Is that what God is for?
Just a Rabbit's foot?
Just a lucky paw
For shock and awe?
Shock and awe!

The dawn of man comes slow
Thousands of years
Here we are
Still worshiping
Our own ego
Strong and Wrong!
Strong and Wrong!

Worship of power, domination, war and violence are mainly masculine traits, imposed by patrist cultures and spread all over the world. History is full of masculine war narrations by putting aside feminine peaceful ones.

You can hear songs from this album in youtube:

This place
Big Yellow Taxi (remake)
Bad Dreams

D. D. T. on My Brain by Malvina Reynolds (1969)

I don't need your LSD,
Head to toe I'm DDT,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

Can't think like I used to do,
Still I know it's not good for you,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

They spray the wheat the chickens eat,
It's in my eggs, it's in my meat,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

It kills the bugs in the apple tree,
I eat the pie and it's killing me,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

All the farms they get that spray,
It washes down into my Bay,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

It kills the crabs, it kills the fish,
It shines up from my supper dish,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

Falcon's flying wild and free,
His babies die of the DDT,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

Chemical stocks are riding high,
Farm field workers spray and die,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

Bring back the bugs in my apple tree,
Don't lay that poison spray on me,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

I don't need your LSD,
DDT is killing me,
DDT on my brain, on my brain.

A song that tells in brief all about the DDT impacts to nature, food chain, human and animal health. Once considered a blessing and salvation for malaria quickly it shows that it was a curse that came to stay. Even today, after the mass production and use in 40s-50s and the banning afterwards, DDT is present even in arctic areas through atmospheric circulation and animal migration. We read in wikipedia:

In 1962, "Silent Spring" by American biologist Rachel Carson was published. The book catalogued the environmental impacts of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT in the US and questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of chemicals into the environment without fully understanding their effects on ecology or human health. The book suggested that DDT and other pesticides may cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds. Its publication was one of the signature events in the birth of the environmental movement. Silent Spring resulted in a large public outcry that eventually led to most uses of DDT being banned in the US in 1972.
DDT was subsequently banned for agricultural use worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, but its limited use in disease vector control continues to this day in certain parts of the world and remains controversial. Along with the passage of the Endangered Species Act, the US ban on DDT is cited by scientists as a major factor in the comeback of the bald eagle in the contiguous US.

DDT is a persistent organic pollutant that is extremely hydrophobic and strongly absorbed by soils. Depending on conditions, its soil half life can range from 22 days to 30 years. When applied to aquatic ecosystems it is quickly absorbed by organisms and by soil or it evaporates, leaving little DDT dissolved in the water itself. Its breakdown products and metabolites, DDE and DDD, are also highly persistent and have similar chemical and physical properties.These products together are known as "total DDT". DDT and its breakdown products are transported from warmer regions of the world to the Arctic by the phenomenon of global distillation, where they then accumulate in the region's food web.
DDT, DDE, and DDD magnify through the food chain, with apex predators such as raptors having a higher concentration of the chemicals than other animals sharing the same environment. They are stored mainly in body fat. In the United States, human blood and fat tissue samples collected in the early 1970s showed detectable levels in all samples. A study conducted in the late 1970s after the U.S. DDT ban found that blood levels were declining, but DDT or metabolites were still found in a high proportion of samples. Biomonitoring conducted by the Centers for Disease Control as recently as 2002 shows that more than half of subjects tested had detectable levels of DDT or metabolites in their blood,and of the 700+ milk samples tested by the USDA in 2005, 85% had detectable levels of DDE.

DDT was a major reason for the decline of the bald eagle in North America in the 1950s and 1960s as well as the brown pelican and the peregrine falcon. DDT and its breakdown products are toxic to embryos and disrupts calcium absorption, thereby impairing eggshell quality. DDT is also highly toxic to aquatic life, including crayfish, daphnids, sea shrimp and many species of fish.

You can hear a Malvina's song (No hole in my hand)in youtube

"Rocky mountains suite" by John Denver Album: Farewell Andromeda (1973)

Up in a meadow in Jasper Alberta
Two men and four ponies on a long lonesome ride
To see the high country and learn of her people
The ways that they lived there the ways that they died

And one is a teacher one a beginner
Just wanting to be there and wanting to know
And together they're trying to tell us a story
That should have been listened to long long ago

Now the life in the mountains is living in danger
From too many people too many machines
And the time is upon us today is forever
Tomorrow is just one of yesterday's dreams

Cold nights in Canada and icy blue winds
The man and the mountains are brothers again
Clear waters are laughing they sing to the sky
The Rockies are living they never will die

Up in a meadow in Jasper Alberta
Two men and four ponies on a long lonesome ride

An hymn for the mountains and their wilderness, but there is also a warning for the dangers by touristic development, construction of accomodations and presence of too much people, pressures that sensitive mountainous ecosystems can't withstand.

We read about this song in cdciao:

Rocky Mountain Suite (cold nights in Canada) is a warning of the danger of the ever-expanding population, urbanisation and industrialisation. It was written for a documentary in which John and Canadian Mounty, Tommy Tompkins went in search of the lost herds of bighorn sheep, “living in danger from too many people, too many machines”. Rocky Mountain relays a similar message by emphasizing the natural qualities of the mountains “more people, more scars upon the land”

You can hear this song in youtube