You Are My Sunshine (Anti-Nuclear Version)
c.1977 Jonathan Betz-Zall

Chorus: You are my sunshine, my lovely sunshine
In your great warmth I love to dance
You could supply us with all our energy
If they would only give you a chance

1. The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
A nuclear power plant was built next door
Now we've been poisoned by radiation
And our children will grow here no more

2. The power companies and Big Petroleum
Are only striving for their own wealth
Their radiation and coal pollution
Are a clear and present danger to our health

3. With conservation and solar heating
And growing plants in a greenhouse dome
We could establish new ways of living
And truly make this earth our good home.

I wrote this on the eve of the first major civil disobedience action at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in early August, 1977, in San Luis Obispo, CA, and sang it on stage at the rally there. Subsequent news coverage showed some of the demonstrators singing my song as they huffed and puffed their way up the ladders to climb over the fence surrounding the plant site. It was quite gratifying to my ego! Jonathan Betz-Zall, Seattle, Washington