Protest songs - destroying rural areas?

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 12:21 PM

The thing is that the (so-called) planning authorities and the developers don't know where to stop - the process is open-ended and likely to carry on until we run out of space. And developments, like the one 'Becks' is talking about, just keep getting bigger and bigger. Just ask yourself, where will we be in 20, 50, 100 or 200 years time? Will everything be built on? And if we build on everything will we be able to feed ourselves? Until recently food was cheap and farmland was sold off for development. Now world food prices are increasing and 'home-grown' food seems like a good idea - you can't grow food on an 'exclusive development of luxury homes', can you?

But there are also deeper issues around quality of life and biodiversity. Nevertheless, all of these considerations must be swept aside to make way for the GREAT GOD PROFIT - musn't they?

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: pdq
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 12:52 PM

"The trick is to manage to accommodate the increasing population without paving over all arable land and places of beauty..." ~ GUEST

Not possible because each person wants as much money as possible for his/her property. It's human nature. The real estate developer can pay 2 million for a 60 acre farm. Farmers usually can't.

"...all of these considerations must be swept aside to make way for the GREAT GOD PROFIT - musn't they?"

"All considerations" is pretty broad. Shimrod is a raving Socialist so everything appears to him to be the product of his boogey men: capitalists.

The main problems are overpopulation and government corruption. In California, where GUEST is from, re-zoning farm land into housing developements usually involves getting a corrupt shill in the planning commission, often using "minority contractors" to make the developement proposals, eventually the actual construction is arranged and financed by organized crime money. It stinks, partly because our government has too much power, not because it has too little power.

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 02:47 PM

"Shimrod is a raving Socialist ..."

Am I? Sez who?

"It stinks, partly because our government has too much power, not because it has too little power."

Sounds like you're a 'raving Libertarian', 'pdq'. And look where lack of regulation has got us!

Subject: Lyr Add: LEAVE THEM A FLOWER (Wally Whyton)
From: goatfell
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 05:15 PM

this is a song which I like singing

Leave Them A Flower
(Wally Whyton)
       Leave them a flower, some grass and a hedgerow
       A hill and a valley, a view to the sea
       These things are not yours to destroy as you want to
       A gift given once for eternity

I speak on behalf of the next generation
My sons and daughters, their children to come
What will you leave them for their recreation
An oil slick, a pylon, an industrial slum

You plunder and pillage, you tear and you tunnel
Trees lying toppled, roots finger the sky
Building a land for machines and computers
In the name of progress the farms have to die

Fish in the ocean polluted and poisoned
The sand on the beaches stinking and black
And you with your tankers, your banks and investments
Say, Never worry, the birds will come back

When the last flower has dropped its last petal
When the last concrete is finally laid
The moon will shine cold on a nightmarish landscape
Your gift to your children, this world that you made

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: johnross
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 11:07 PM

Cyriil Tawney's "If We Did to Their Daughters What They're Doing to Our Land." It's on the "It's Our World" LP on Argo issued as a benefit for the World Wildlife Fund, and on one of his later cassettes.

Here's a link to an earlier Mudcat thread that includes the lyrics.

Subject: Lyr Add: CONCREETO IS BYOO-TEE-FUL (Denis Keating)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 08:23 AM

One of the best protest songs of this gendre has to be one composed by Australia's Denis Keating, dedicated to the rural highlands in the Blue Mountains where he lived:

Denis Kevans ©

CONCREETO IS BYOO-TEE-FUL!!

Concreeto is byoo-tee-ful !!!!
We need more concreeto in the Blue Mountains,
Because there's a Big Flood coming,
One in a hundred thousand year flood !
Coming tomorrow morning at 6 minutes past seven,
Noah will be "hanging five" on this flood !
We've got to put thirty metres of concreeto on top of the Warra-da-Gamba Dam,
So bush walkers can walk straight up, and straight down,
Saves time walking around the crooked mountains,
Because concreeto is byoo-tee-ful, It's a byo-tee-ful colour grey-ey-ey, nice and smoooothe,

One in a hundred thousand year flood,
One is a very small number, not very attractive,
But 100,000 is fairly attractive, it's one tenth of a million,
And it's easy to make a million these days with the—concreeto—
Because concreeto is byoo-tee-ful, it's a beautiful colour, grey-ey-ey,
Nice and smoo-oothe… cheap to make, dear to sell, I love it---

The Mountains are very crooked, very rough job,
Full of cracks, very rough, rough rocks,
Got to fill it up with the concreeto,
Because concreeto is byoo-tee-ful, it's a beautiful colour…grey-ey-ey…
Nice and smoo-oo-ooth…fill up all the cracks with the concreeto,
Make a nice big wedding cake from Lapstone to Mount Victoria,
Nice and smooooth,

Got to straighten up all the cliffs, with the concrete-eeto,
So the bush walkers won't get eye strain
Looking at the crooked cliffs, make them nice and smoo-ooth,
Nice and square, nice and rectangular with the concree-eeto,
Nice straight cliffs and nice square waterfalls,
Because concreeto is byooteeful, it's a beautiful colour, grey-ey-ey,
Nice and smooooth…..

There's Warra da Gamba, Vasco da Gamba and Viola Da Gamba,
Now Vasco da Gama he circumcised the world,
In a Spanish Galleon! If he had a concrete ship,
He could conquer the whole world, I came, I saw, I con-creeted !!!
Viola Da Gamba, it's a concrete violin,
If you don't like the conductor hit him over the bloody head.

Now we've got five riders in the mountains, the Wollondilly, that's a silly,
The Kedumba, that's a dumb name, the Grose, that's a filthy pooey,
The Cox's that's a pornographic, and the Cowdung…
Got to fill em up with the concreeto, make them nice and straight,
Nice and square, nice and smooooth, so the water can run straight
Up and straight down, no more crooked rivers, so the bushwalkers
Can walk straight up and straight down,

Because concreeto is beautiful…it's a beautiful colour grey-ey-ey…nice and smooooth
Nice and square, nice and straight, with the concree-eeto,
So the bushwalkers can walk straight up and straight down,
Saves time walking round the crooked mountains,

The Wollondilly is Concreeto No 1, The Kedumba Concreeto No 2,
The Grose is Concreeto No 3, The Cox's is Concreeto No 4,
And the Cowdung is Concreeto No 5, nice and smooth, with the concreeto,
Because concreeto is beautiful…it's a beautiful colour, grey-ey-ey, nice and smooooth,

Some people come to the mountains for the O-ZONE
I come for the RE-ZONE..
Some people like the multiplication and division,
I like the multiplication and SUB-DIVISION…
With the concreeto, because concreeto is byooteeful,
It's a byooteeful colour, grey-ey-ey, nice and smooooth,

These bushwalkers say the bush is a "Cathedral Without Walls",
How stupeedo! You've got no walls, we've got the con-creeto !
Because concreeto is byoo-tee-ful, it's a byoo-tee-ful colour, grey-ey-ey,
Nice and smoooothhh....

It was a joy to listen to Denis as he purred out "...oncreeto is byoo-tee-ful, it's a byoo-tee-ful colour, grey-ey-ey, Nice and smoooothhh...."

And everyone joined in.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, who spent a memorable evening in Blackheath with Denis and John Dengate

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: goatfell
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 12:11 PM

rip rip woodchip by John Willimson (Aussie)

Subject: Lyr Add: RIP RIP WOODCHIP (John Williamson)
From: goatfell
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 12:15 PM

here's the words

RIP RIP WOODCHIP
Words and Music by John Williamson

What am I gonna do - what about the future?
Gotta draw the line without delay
Why shouldn't I get emotional - the bush is sacred
Ancient life will fade away
Over the hill they go, killing another mountain
Gotta fill the quota - can't go slow
Huge machinery wiping out the scenery
One big swipe like a shearer's blow

Rip rip woodchip - turn it into paper
Throw it in the bin, no news today
Nightmare, dreaming - can't you hear the screaming?
Chainsaw, eyesore - more decay

Remember the axemen knew their timber
Cared about the way they brought it down
Crosscut, blackbutt, tallowood and cedar
Build another bungalow - pioneer town

I am the bush and I am koala
We are one - go hand in hand
I am the bush like Banjo and Henry
It's in my blood - gonna make a stand

Rip rip woodchip - turn it into paper
Throw it in the bin, no news today
Nightmare, dreaming - can't you hear the screaming?
Chainsaw, eyesore - more decay

Rip rip woodchip - turn it into paper
Throw it in the bin - don't understand
Nightmare, dreaming - can't you hear the screaming?
Stirs my blood - gonna make a stand


© 1989 Emusic Pty Ltd

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 08:30 PM

Nobody's mentioned NIMBY by Brian Bedford yet.

No offence to Becks intended. Not every objection to development can be classed as nimbyism, and I know too little on this one to have a strong opinion.

However, I live in Germany where blocks of flats are fairly common. I don't think they're worse than much of Britain's terraced (and often not very well built) housing. I'd rather live in my flat in an 8-storey building, looking out on a hedgerow, than in a detached house in a densely built-up area.

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: sharyn
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 09:18 PM

Thee;s a lovely song on a Black Family recording that starts:

"They're going to build a motorway through me back garden
No one can explain how I came to be chosen..."

It's called "The Motorway Song" and it is by Leon Rosselson. I haven't checked the DT for it.

Good luck.

Sharyn

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: SharonA
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 07:51 PM

"The World Turned Upside Down"?

Subject: RE: Protest songs - destroying rural areas?
From: SharonA
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 07:59 PM

Sorry; I should've been more specific. I meant the Diggers' song, the Leon Rosselson version, here in the DT: World Turned Upside Down