BOTTOM OF THE LAND, PHIL
(Robert Hoyt)

Where are those things you've worked for all your life
Where are the objects of your joy
Where are those things that you've come to expect
Where are the winner's toys

Chorus
Where will you find your place among things
Where will you find your strength
Where will you find the national will
It's all there in the bottom of the land, Phil

Garbage and peas and expired cheese
Good things no one'll ever taste
Paper galore and old two-by-fours
Whole forests laid to waste

Chorus

Well you won't get my cash and I'll steel your trash
Why should I spend it in your corporate store
You can compact it all to hell, but you can't hide the smell
And I'll still be hangin' 'round your back door.

Chorus
Free the trash!

Notes: This song appeared on the album "Dumpster Diving Across America" (Folk the Boat FTBRH204) 1993.
This is what Robert had to say about the song: "When Joe Hoffman first loaned me a Phil Ochs tape, I listened to it once and misplaced it. I wrote this song about over-consumption, garbage, and scavenging (i.e. dumpster diving). I then found the lost tape, and was more than a little dismayed at how badly I had musically ripped off old Phil. But then I realised that what I had created was an environmental protest tribute to Phil Ochs, and that it was not "fill" as in "landfill" but rather "Phil".

RPDec10