Readers of Sprawl-Busters from time to time send me songs they have written and performed against big box stores like Wal-Mart. Here, as an entertainment break, are the lyrics from another anti-sprawl song, this one by David Rovics of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts:
Everything Looks The Same
I’m just driving down this highway
Past a shopping mall
I see billboard after billboard
Hear the advertiser’s call
I see cars and I hear cars and I smell cars
All just like mine
I see a world covered with asphalt
You’re in parking lot G9
It’s just sprawling on forever
It doesn’t even have a name
It’s the land where everything looks the same
See the signs rise high above us
Flashing day and night
Verizon Wireless, Holiday Inn
Coca-Cola Lite
There once was grass here, maybe forest
But none of that’s here now
It’s just product after product
As much as time and space allows
Am I in Tennessee or Texas
Baltimore or Burlingame
I’m where everything looks the same
Ancient forests, family farmers
Or the commons, heart of town
Does it make money, that’s the question
If it don’t we’ll knock it down
There’s not a bicycle for miles
Not a soul in sight
That can’t be seen behind a wheel
A few feet from the headlights
I don’t know my neighbors
And I feel ashamed
Here where everything looks the same
If you don’t like the Wal-Mart
Take these drugs and you’ll feel OK
Now go sit behind the register
And pass your life away
Eat these burgers from the factory
And if you should get fat
Just give us some more money
And we’ve got some drugs for that
In this nation of individuals
Is there one that we can blame
Why everything looks the same
As I’m driving past the clearcut
With the brand new multi-cinema
And the massive mural praising
The latest enema
I think of moving eastward
Maybe Gant or Amsterdam
Far from Ronald McDonald
And his greedy Uncle Sam
Where life looks more like life
And not some cardboard money game
Where everything looks the same
For more songs by David Rovics, go to www.davidrovics.com. For earlier songs against sprawl and Wal-Mart, search Newsflash by “songs.”
