Please be patient, it takes 5 to 10 seconds for streaming to start Leave it in the Ground Words & Music by Mook ©1987 from the tape "Era"  by Bahloo Second Track:  "Pennsylvania Wind" Performed by Mook and Shanto

John Seed: "These two tracks were recorded at the "Trees for Peace" concert at the Bush Theatre in Nimbin NSW in the mid-'80's, one of the great benefit concerts of all time. We were trying to stop the Roxby Downs Uranium mine at the time and anti-nuclear sentiment was running high throughout the country. Fifteen years later, same old problem! It feels very appropriate to include in this collection with part of the proceeds going to support the Mirrar people's struggle to try and shut down the uranium mine on their land at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory."

LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND
                         (c) Hanley/Oliver           1977

My name is Jonah the Whale
Out on the oceans I sail
Out where the wind and the waves say 
"You've nothing to save but yourself!"

You're fouling the sea and the air
And you're laying the rainforest bare
And you buy and you sell
In your man-powered hell
But we all have a story to tell


CHORUS

Don't spread Uranium 'round 
(Leave it in the ground!)
Don't cut the rainforest down!
Don't spread Uranium 'round 
(Leave it in the ground!)
Don't cut the animals down!
And for your freedom's sake
Don't let men take
The power to burn us all down

Leave it in the ground!
Leave it in the ground!
Leave it in the ground!


Turn all your minds to the land
Give Mother Nature a hand
Head for the country and run free and easy
And see how the New People stand

Throw all your shackles away
Live for the moment today
Get back to living
And loving and giving
And turning the opposite way


CHORUS

Don't spread Uranium 'round
(Leave it in the ground!)
Don't cut the rainforest down!
Don't spread Uranium 'round 
(Leave it in the ground!)
Don't cut the animals down!
And for your freedom's sake
Don't let men take
The power to burn us all down 

Leave it in the ground! Leave it in the ground!
Leave it in the ground! Leave it in the ground!
Leave it in the ground! Leave it in the ground!

Mook:" One day early in 1977 while shopping in Lismore I was approached by a guy who said "Hey you're the bloke who writes all the songs about trees and stuff ... how about writing one about Uranium Mining?" I agreed with him that this was a good idea and put the seed thought into the songwriting computer in my head. Many months later in October of that year I was handed a present of a classic bud grown by Gary the Gnome who had recently left "Heaven" on Tuntable Falls next to "Numenadi" where we were living.

That bud was the catalyst for one of my many "automatic" songwriting sessions ... giving birth to this song which was to have a remarkable life of its own in the following years ... more