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Petrified Forest Lyrics
Human bark
Beautyless hide from beauty
Bow your eyes 'n heads to the duty of the dead sucked to the ground
Breathe life into the dead dinosaurs
Let the past demons rear up their heads 'n belch fire into the air of now
The rug's wearing out that we walk on
Soon it will fray and we'll drop dead into yesterday
Must the breathing pay for those who breathe in 'n don't breathe out?
There'd be no gain, brother, if no one would play
'n as for your games count me 'n all that can see,
Breathe in 'n out hungry today 'n eat hearty tomorrow
Or eat away 'n be eaten someday
No flower shall grow where oil shall flow.
No seed shall sow in salt water.
If the dinosaur cries with blood in his eyes
'n eats our babies for our lies
Belches fire in our skies
Maybe I'll die but he'll be rumblin' through
Your petrified forest...
(Andante; odeecology)
Beautyless hide from beauty
Bow your eyes 'n heads to the duty of the dead sucked to the ground
Breathe life into the dead dinosaurs
Let the past demons rear up their heads 'n belch fire into the air of now
Soon it will fray and we'll drop dead into yesterday
Must the breathing pay for those who breathe in 'n don't breathe out?
There'd be no gain, brother, if no one would play
'n as for your games count me 'n all that can see,
Breathe in 'n out hungry today 'n eat hearty tomorrow
Or eat away 'n be eaten someday
No seed shall sow in salt water.
'n eats our babies for our lies
Belches fire in our skies
Maybe I'll die but he'll be rumblin' through
Your petrified forest...
Song Info
Submitted by
bluegrassish On Jun 03, 2008
More Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
Big Eyed Beans from Venus
Ice Cream for Crow
Pachuco Cadaver
Moonlight On Vermont
Yellow Brick Road
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Agree with poster above, Beefheart was an environmentalist, a poet with strong affinity with nature, this poem has a prophetic tone. Humans face fate of dinosaurs, man is extinct, love the image of petrified forest, literally "turned to stone", incidentally name of a painting I once saw by artist Max Ernst.
Masterpiece - lyrically and musically bursting with detail. Obviously it's a prophecy of environmental decay destroying the human race. He wrote a lot of lyrics about that circa 1970.