Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose

Subject: Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose
From: GUEST,3rdragon
Date: 27 Jul 18 - 06:56 PM

I heard a song about global warming at the Armory Pub Sing in Somerville MA. The singer identified the artist (but did so before singing the song, so of course I didn't write it down). The conceit of the song is that it's told from a future 50 or 100 years in our future, talking about a time before global warming caused sea level rise, and about how good they (we) had it.

I clearly remember that one of the lines of the chorus was "Back in the olden days, before the oceans rose," but periodic Google searches haven't turned anything up. I would appreciate lyrics, tune, song name, artist name, or anything you've got.

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose
From: GUEST,John C. Bunnell
Date: 29 Jul 18 - 10:35 PM

Hmmm. On one hand, this ("The Great Nebraska Sea", by Blake Hodgetts) is probably *not* the song you're looking for -- referring as it does to a somewhat different cause for climate change -- but the central conceit is similar, and perhaps this will help zero in on the right song.

"Then the land sank down
And the oceans hurried in
And we lost a fifth of our geography;
More than 14 million souls
Found their way to Heaven's rolls
With the coming of the Great Nebraska Sea."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 18 - 10:02 AM

Yeah, that's definitely not it, but thanks!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose
From: RTim
Date: 08 Oct 18 - 10:41 AM

There has been a Song Writing Comp. at the Portsmouth Maritime Festival (New Hampshire) - last year - 2017 - the winning song used that theme, but I can't find the reference to the singer or the lyric. But at least this maybe a start.....

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Oct 18 - 03:00 PM

Searching on that theme, I found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik7EP3ohZpc

It's not the song I'm looking for, but is relevant to my interests, thank you!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose
From: Jeff Keller
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 01:43 PM

Found it! It's by Robbie O'Connell. (I think I heard him sing it a few years ago at the Mystic Sea Music Festival, in the boat shed.) The following is from Allyn Dimock:

I hope that people other than me are interesting in Robbie O'Connell's song "Before The Oceans Rose" I include the lyrics and a link to Robbie's performance (a very pleasant voice and good guitar accompaniment) below. Since it didn't seem like Robbie was about to record it, I got his permission to perform it and pass it on to interested people.

Before The Oceans Rose
(c) Robbie O’Connell, 2015, Slievenamon Music (BMI). All Rights Reserved.

Great grandad told me stories of when he was a boy,
How the world was different then and the freedom he enjoyed.
He spent his summers by the beach, in the winters that had snow,
but That was in the old days before the oceans rose.
They had football games and holidays, everyone had cars,
You could travel all around the world, there weren’t so many wars.
They had houses with big gardens where flowers and trees would grow,
(ch) but That was in the old days before the oceans rose
Way back in the old days before the oceans rose.

He told me how when he was young there was always food to eat.
Water wasn’t rationed. They had lots of fish and meat.
Where we have the desert now vast fields of corn were grown
but That was in the old days before the oceans rose.
They had festivals and carnivals, they had restaurants and pubs.
The houses all had showers then. Some even had bathtubs.
Oil cost more than water and you picked out your own clothes
but That was in the old days before the oceans rose
Way back in the old days before the oceans rose.

They had schools and universities, you could study what you liked.
You were free to pick your own job and you didn’t work the dikes.
Our leaders were elected then, you could vote for whom you chose
but That was in the old days before the oceans rose,
When the streets weren’t full of checkpoints, there were no I.D. tattoos,
They didn’t impose curfews and surveillance drones weren’t used.
You could wake up in the morning and just walk out of your home
but That was in the old days before the oceans rose
Way back in the old days before the oceans rose.

How could they have done nothing as the ice crashed to the sea?
As they watched the shriveled crops wither in the fields?
Its so hard to be hopeful when you see what’s gone before
back there in the old days before the oceans rose.
When profit is the driving force they don’t care what gets lost,
They can’t look beyond the balance sheet to see the final cost.
Profit isn’t everything as any kid now knows
as it was back in the old days before the oceans rose
Way back in the old days before the oceans rose.

No, profit isn’t everything as any kid now knows
as it was back in the old days before the oceans rose
Way back in the old days before the oceans rose.

Robbie’s rendition is at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1772uwfzpJ33UfHpV4cCpVCV1iGSZWr90

(I think that the lyric is pretty much correct. I may have added or dropped the odd “then”. Robbie says of his performance that the tune for the last line of the first verse should carry through the rest of the verses of the song and only change for the repeat of the final chorus.)
Before The Oceans Rose.txt
Displaying Before The Oceans Rose.txt.

Subject: Lyr Add: There Won't Be No Country Music
From: cnd
Date: 11 Jul 20 - 09:25 PM

That's a beautiful song Jeff, good catch and thanks for sharing the lyrics.

Environmental songs have always struck a chord with me, as an avid hiker and backpacker, but sometimes artists have the tendency to make these songs variations on the same repeated theme, ie, "too many cars and plans make things bad," and the songs can get tired and loose their impact. A song like this truly drives things home to me.

A favorite environmental song of mine is Norman Blake's Highland Light (though it is--admittedly--pretty xenophobic) and "There Won't Be No Country Music" by, of all people, lead proponent of country music's truck-driver songs C. W. McCall (of "Convoy" fame). Since I haven't found a thread mentioning that song here yet, I'll add the lyrics here. It's got a very similar vein as the requested song.

From McCall's album, Wilderness, which focuses (logically) on the wilderness, the environment, and related issues. Released 1976.

THERE WON'T BE NO COUNTRY MUSIC
(Bill Fries, Chip Davis)

Well, it's only gonna be about an hour, friend
Till they dam your favorite river
So you can water-ski just one more reservoir
And them supersonic ships are gonna take you
'Cross a sea of pavement
To one more faceless brickyard on the shore

Yeah, it's only gonna be about an hour or so
Till they rip off all your mountains, boy
And that one last tired old eagle bites the sand
And all of that high-and-mighty scenery's
Gonna be leveled to the ground, boy
By a bunch a' them mindless strip mines on the land

CHORUS
So listen well, my brothers
When you hear the night wind sigh
And you see the wild goose flying
Through the gray, polluted sky
There won't be no country music
There won't be no rock 'n' roll
'Cause when they take away our country
They'll take away our soul

Well, it's only gonna take about a minute or so
Till the junkyards fill the prairies, boy
And them smokin' yellow grass fires start to burn
And the warnings on them beer cans
Gonna be buried in them landfills
No deposit, no sad songs, and no returns

Yeah, it's only gonna take about a minute or so
Till the factories blot the sun out
You gonna have to turn your lights on just to see
And them lights are gonna be neon, sayin'
"Fly Our Jets To Paradise"
And the whole damn world is gonna be made of styrene

CHORUS

Yeah, it's only gonna be about a second, boy
Till they take away all'a this country
And they'll tell you not to listen to this here song
And that far-off sound of freedom's
Gonna be an echo from the past
And the final tune is gonna be sad and long

And it's only gonna be about an eye-blink, boy
Till they pull out the wool to blind us
So we just can't read all the messages on the wall
But the only words that matter
Oughta be scribbled all over them billboards
In big old black and bloody letters, ten feet tall

[CLOSING CHORUS]
There won't be no country music
There won't be no rock 'n' roll
'Cause when they take away our country
They'll take away our soul

CLOSING CHORUS (x3)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose
From: GUEST,Rick Pollay
Date: 26 Sep 20 - 04:21 PM

Thanks for these lyrics and the link. How sad to feel that these VERY dystopian lyrics seem to be coming true.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Olden Days, Before the Oceans Rose
From: GUEST,3rDragon
Date: 29 Sep 20 - 04:48 PM

Yes, that is it! Thank you very much!