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John Seed & Ruth Rosenhek's Rainforest Roadshow
LYRICS
You Can't Clearcut Your Way to
Heaven
Habitat, Habitat
Word to the Mother
Ancient Forests
Expanding Universe
YOU
CAN'T CLEARCUT YOU WAY TO HEAVEN
Darryl Cherney
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Now the Lord, He made the world in just six days
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A wonder to behold when it was done
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The oceans and blue skys, forests green and mountains high
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With animals which crawl and fly and run
But one, of God's
creatures wasn't pleased
It wanted to create with its own hands
So it clearcut all the trees, carved the mountains, spoiled the
seas
Proclaiming it the way that God had planned
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But you can't clearcut your way to Heaven
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No, strip mines don't make it with the Lord CHORUS
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Bulldozin' the Creation won't win God's admiration
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And the Pearly Gates may close for Evermore
Now my Mama, used to read the family bible
And it said: "Thou shalt not covet, steal or kill
But then I coveted the forests and the mountains
And I stole my mother Nature's gems at will
Then I killed
off many critters to Extinction
But I'm sure god must have made them by mistake
Cause I had to keep my job, where I plunder rape and rob
But I swear to you it's for my children's sake
CHORUS
Well to-day, I
heard they mined the rock of ages
Cause they thought it had a chunk of gold inside
And they're dumping PCB's, into the Sea of Galilee
And they've milled the cross on which our saviour died
And they've levelled,
old Jerusalem for condos
Done built a shopping mall where Jesus did his thing
And as I looked on our success, at creating such a mess
I swore I heard a band of angels sing
CHORUS
CHORUS
copyright Bill Oliver
Habitat, habitat, have to have a habitat
Habitat, habitat, have to have a habitat
Habitat, habitat, have to have a habitat
Have to have a habitat to carry on.
The ocean is a habitat
A very special habitat
It's where the deepest waters' at
It's where the largest mammals' at
It's wherethe futures' food is at
It keeps the atmosphere intact
The ocean is a habitat that we depend on.
CHORUS
The forest is a habitat
A very special habitat
It's where the tallest trees are at
It's where a bear can scratch her back
It keeps the ground from rolling back
Renews the aquifers in fact
The forest is a habitat that we depend on.
CHORUS
The river is a habitat
A very special habitat
It's where the freshest waters' at
For people, fish and muskrats
But when the people dump the trash
The river takes the biggest rap
The river is a habitat that we depend on.
CHORUS
People are different than foxes and rabbits
Affect the whole earth with their bad habits
Better love while we still have it
Or rat-ta-tat-tat
Our habitat's gone.....
CHORUS
copyright Dana Lyons
C G Am Em F G
When the trees are gone, who will brush against the sky?
And when the leaves are gone, will there be any birds to fly?
When the forest disappears will there be any place to hide?
For the owl and the bear, is there anything left behind?
CHORUS
F C Am Em F C G
So today we end the silence, speak out for the trees
Save the ancient forests of America
F C Am Em F G C
People across the land, now we take a stand
To see the ancient forests live forever.
And for the thousand year old fir, is this the final hour?
For the redwood and cedar, will they feel the chainsaws' power?
And in one hundred years, will our children read in books
About the ancient forests and wonder how they looked?
CHORUS
For the life or death of forests, who will make the choice
And for all the threatened species, who will raise their voice?
In all climates and all countries, will we sing in many tongues
For the waters of the forests and the air that fills our lungs?
CHORUS
Copyright Eric Idle, Adapted by John Seed
A
Remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
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Revolving at 900 miles an hour
It's orbiting at 19 miles a second so its reckoned
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A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me and all the stars that you can see
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Are moving at a million miles a day
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In an outer spiral arm at 40,000 miles an hour
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A
In a galaxy they call the Milky Way
The Milky Way.
Our galaxy contains a hundred million stars
It's a hundred thousand light-years side-to-side
It bulges in the middle 16,000 light-years thick
But out by us it's just 3,000 light-years wide
We're 30,000 light-years from galactic central-point
We go round every 200 million years
And this galaxy is only one of millions and billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
Expanding Universe.
The Universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizzz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know
12 million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And sink your roots deep into the galaxy,
Dance of life, Planet Earth.
Yes sink your roots deep into reality,
Dance your life for Planet Earth.
copyright Drew Dellinger, 1998
Drew King Dellinger
Promoting Justice and Cosmology through Education and Arts.
the Center of the Universe
PO Box 11347, Prescott, AZ 86304
(520) 445-6186
Drew@lankaster.com
I once was blind, but now I see
I understand that the planet is the source of me
Literally, just like a mom gives birth to a babe
Mother Earth's given birth to everything that's been made
Word to the Mother
Source of every other
Thing, every being, in the ring of creation
And every individual's a manifestation
Of the grace innate in this place, space and time
Expressing the blessing, caressing my mind
Holy Osmosis!
That's what the cosmos is
Boomin',
Universe,
Earth,
Human.
From the beginning
The spinning Universe possessed
A spiritual interior
Inside the manifest
Blessed with a blast from the past
Free at last
As the Big Bang
Rang, sprang, sang from the start, from the void
Like a joy from the heart of the dark
And the light's
The birthright of us all
You and
I are all
The fire ball
The higher call
Inspires all with a sense of place
Let us find the divine mind
Behind every face
I've just begun to recognise the whole
soul force
Word to the Mother
Word to the Source
We've gotta get back to the Mother
We've got to get back to the Earth
We've gotta get back to the Mother
We've got to get back to the Earth
Word to the Mother
So how dare we
Have the nerve to disturb
The planetary Source
The very force that brought us alive
If She ain't in effect
There ain't no way to survive
How can we see no wisdom
From the ecosystem
This industrialized phase craze to pave highways
Yikes!
50,000 toxic sites
Nuclear power plants
Constructed with haste
Without any clue
What to do with the waste
Radiation. Seeping deep in the nation
Losing patience
With corporations
And abusers
Grinnin' like their winnin' when we'll all be the losers
Ignore natural forces
Deplete our resources
No remorse, we're off course, hold your horses.
Mother may I
Try to say why
My society lost sight of the whole
As we try and we try till we die to control
The Earth dream that can never be tamed
That can never be sold and that can never be named
What's a shame and is lame is that we thought it was clever
To dam every river ever
Never-never land is at hand unless we see and rediscover
There ain't no other
It's absurd to have to say it:
But Word to the Mother
We've gotta get back to the Mother
We've got to get back to the Earth
We've gotta get back to the Mother
We've got to get back to the Earth
The story of the Mother as I reminisce
is enough to make this brother ecofeminist
How can we limit this limitless exponential
Growth potential. Economy is secondary
Earth's essential.
The Mother exists in every wave on the sea
Every bird in the sky and every leaf on the tree.
Community, unity, you and me, family
All of us children born from 4 billion years
Of the blood sweat and tears
of the Earth
We need to
let her be
Let her grow
Set her free, let her fly, let her flow, let her go
And unfold
The way the mother intended
Activities that damage the Earth must be suspended.
Listen cause we're missin' what the Mother's advice is
She'll help us deal with ecological crisis
She's mightier
Than Aphrodite or Isis
And twice as creative, illustrative of the point
When the Earth gives birth to the Now
Still We try to milk every sacred cow
We need to chill untill we see
That no creature is my enemy
They're all kin to me
Earth is the remedy
For the malady
She's the truth at the root of reality
The elements of my bones
are left over from the swirling stardust of a supernova
Made by the Earth and the Breath of the One
Rain's in the veins in the flames of the sun's
In the heart each part contains the sum of the whole
Earth Body, Earth Spirit, Universe Soul
Word to the Mother
You gotta love her
We've gotta get back to the Mother
We've got to get back to the Earth
We've gotta get back to the Mother
We've got to get back to the Earth