Down There

Down There
by John Forster & Tom Chapin
© 2015 Limousine Music Co. & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP)

Rivers running brown
Money changing hands
Cracking underground
We’re ringing every last drop from the land

Just ‘cause it’s down there
A billion barrels in the shale
Just ‘cause it’s down there
A-glowin’ like the holy grail
And now we’ll let the windmills rust
Ride that boom till it goes bust
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Just ‘cause it’s down there

Chemical syringe
Shoot it down the shaft
Hydrocarbone binge
We’re all just junkies hooked on gas

Just ‘cause it’s down there
We got to go and suck it dry
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Don’t need no other reason why
But there are people in the way
Real-live people who will pay
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Just ‘cause it’s down there

If there’s a sea we’ll fish it out
If there’s a tree we’ll cut it down
Tear the top right off a mountain
Leave behind the barren ground
A drop of oil anywhere
We’ll find a way to make it glow
And that’s the way it will go
The way that it will go

Till somebody says no (“NO!”)
This is not OK
No begins to grow (“NO!”)
We begin to find a better way

Just ‘cause it’s down there
We’re gonna leave it where it lays
Just ‘cause it’s down there
We don’t care how much it pays
The sweet, sweet water in our spring
Is worth more than anything
Just ‘cause it’s down there

Just ‘cause it’s down there
That’s the place that it will stay
Just ‘cause it’s down there
We can turn and walk away
And leave the bedrock and the shale
Mother Earth is not for sale
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Just ‘cause it’s down there
Just ‘cause it’s down there

This song appears on Tom Chapin's Tom Chapin - 70 CD.

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