Coal and Petroleum

Ray Bub
written 1972,
dedicated to Leslie Pearson

I always thought I should send this song to Pete Seeger, but I never did. Why not? I can’t say.

A long long long long time ago
The sun came pourin’ down,
A-raisin’ up the trees and shrubs
An’ bushes all around.
An’ as this vegetation grew too weary for the race
It fell to earth an’ made the soil
For them that took its place.

Well on an’ on an’ on an’ on
In cyclic repetition
This process formed in ancient swamps
Deposits of collections
Of rotted roots an’ stems an’ leaves
Too numerous to measure,
Which buried by the Sands Of Time
Were crushed with monstrous pressure.

Now on this prehistoric tale
We needn’t dwell too long,
In fact just long enough to glean
The reason for this song.
The Spectre that now haunts mankind,
The Devil in a Drum,
Is what remains of those old swamps,
Coal and Petroleum.

Old Henry Ford and Orville Wright,
And Old Bob Fulton too,
Of the consequences of their deeds
They never had a clue.
One hundred years since they began
Their plans to make men free,
The gravest threat to life on earth
Would be technology.

Although I may seem so disguised,
A dreamer I am not.
I don’t believe men can reject
The prize for which they’ve fought
And worked and bled and sacrificed and died to make it real:
A heav’n-on-earth machin’ry made
Good Life for All ideal.

We’ve auto-cars and aero-planes,
A-tomic submarines,
Electric things to open cans
And then quick-cook our beans.
Radio, phonograph and TV
To take the place of books,
We’ve even got electric chairs
To fry convicted crooks!

More plain than any face’s nose
A truth we can’t dispute,
Is that our marvelous machines
Do poison and pollute,
Upsetting fragile balances,
Destroying vital links,
Which will if they aren’t soon restored
Make life on earth extinct.

Now all these undeni’ble facts
Do paint a picture grim,
Straight pointing toward concluding that
Our hopes are pretty slim.
But same as darkest night time coming
Just before the dawn,
We might be saved by total loss
Of what propels us on.

What spins the wheels that give the juice
That makes machin’ry turn?
What pow’rs the ships and drives the cars
Which stuff do jet planes burn?
What’s given men the energy
To win the short-run race?
And what’s surprised us with the prize
Of poisoned planet’s face?

It’s not the old religions or
The Pope will bring us low.
It’s not bubonic plague, or hell,
Or lack of birth control.
It isn’t politics although
The A-bomb’s it say some;
It’s what became of those old swamps:
Coal and petroleum.

Each conscientious citizen
Must rally to the cry:
“Destroy the evil at its root,”
Consume, spend, multiply,
Use oil, coal, gas, electrical
Appliances non-stop
Don’t ever walk if you can ride
And ride until you drop.

So soldiers roll those tanks along,
Don’t let the engines cease.
Sail, sailors, sweep across the seas,
Don’t let the pace decrease.
Jet pilots wing across the skies,
Don’t ever touch the ground.
And truckers ball that jack along,
Don’t stop that highway sound.

A mighty challenge faces all
Mankind upon the earth.
Our own desire to live in ease
Is threatening new birth.
But though it seem our corp’rate dream
Will nullify all seed,
A hero of unlikely hue
Might save life:  Human Greed.