Pete Seeger - Cement Octopus Lyrics
words and music by Malvina ReynoldsThere's a cement octopus sits in Sacramento, I think,Gets red tape to eat, gasoline taxes to drin,And it grows by day and it grows by nightAnd it rolls over everything in sight.Oh, stand by me and protect that treeFrom the freeway misery.Who knows how the monster started to grow that way;Its parents are frightened and wish it would go away.But the taxes keep coming, they have to be spentOn big bull dozers and tanks of cement,Oh, stand by me and protect that treeFrom the freeway misery.That octopus grows like a science-fiction blight,The Bay and the Ferry building are out of sight,The trees that stood for a thousand years,We watch them falling through our tearsOh, stand by me and protect that treeFrom the freeway misery.Dear old MacLaren won't take this lying down,We can hear his spirit move in the sandy ground,He built this Eden on the duney plain,Now they're making it a concrete desert again,Oh, stand by me and protect that treeFrom the freeway misery.The men on the highways need those jobs, we knowLets put them to work planting new trees to grow.Building new parks where kids can play,Pushing that cement monster away,Oh, stand by me and protect that treeFrom the freeway misery
