Malvina Reynolds in 60's: protest songs about saving forests and trees

Run, Run, the Tree Is Falling by Malvina Reynolds 1965

Run, run, the tree is falling,
Run, run, the chain saw's at his throat!
Once the redwood's gone
It will not come again,
It will not be a giant
In the history of time.

Once the grove is gone,
The living fern and bush,
It will not house the yellow deer,
It will not bear the thrush.

Once the trees are gone
That drank the heavy rain,
The water-maddened rivers
Will tear the land again.

Once the forest's gone
That was the creature's friend,
We'll never have the wilderness
To reach a healing hand.

Stop the iron teeth
That only know to kill,
That turn the mighty forest
Into corpses at the mill.



The Falling of the Tree by Malvina Reynolds, 1965

He thought he owned the tree because he bought it.
But what does money have to do with trees?
She said the tree was hers because she loved it.
She didn't want to own it only let it be.

He thought he owned the land because he bought it.
But what does money have to do with land?
Older than he by many million years,
And here after the generations die.

He cut the tree down and the lady cried.
She called him pig, and wished she had a gun.
In court, her lawyer softly asked for pardon,
That she had been, he said emotional.

She cried and cursed for murder of a tree.
He thought he owned the tree because he bought it,
And like a feudal lord who had the right
To kill his wife if she got in his road,

Since it was his, he had the right to kill it.
The lovely tree, older and wiser,
Living in beauty, dying in awful silence,
Cut into nothing, while a woman cried.



Give a Man a Bulldozer Malvina Reynolds 1967

Give a man a bulldozer,
He'll fill the lake with muck,
A thousand years it was running clear,
But now it's running out of luck.
Give a man a bulldozer,
He'll shove the soil away,
A thousand years of careful loam
He pushes it down into the bay.
Give a man a bulldozer,
He sees a little glen,
It's nice with falls and fern and buds
And bugs and gentle violets, and then--
Give a man a bulldozer,
Made of fire and steel,
He'll make the whole world reel and rock,
He'll end up buried in the muck,
With the bulldozer on top.



Green Shadows by Malvina Reynolds 1969

You walk into this room,
The trees are all around you.
Green shadows kiss your head,
The gentle sounds surround you,
Your soul lies down on the piney bed.
The walls are random walls,
You do not feel them press you,
Green shadows touch your eyes,
Their silent welcomes bless you,
Your dreams come singing from the skies.
You are no longer one
But all that breathes beside you,
You are the craggy bark,
The leaves that move and hide you,
Green shadows and the rising dark.
You walk into this room,
The trees are all around you,
This is a living day,
No hostile sounds will wound you,
The chain saw's cry is far away.


Four songs by Malvina Reynolds where she strongly criticizes how human is ill disposed towards trees, forests and green, not hesitating to eliminate green landscapes immediately using destructive machines like chain saws, bulldozers, etc and replaces them with concrete buildings. We read about the song “The falling of a tree”

In the Notes and Comments to her songbook The Muse of Parker Street Malvina writes of this song: "A subdivider on Harbor Point, at the north end of the Bay, cut down some great old trees near the home of Lois Knill, and she didn't like it."

You can hear a song in myspace