Lou Reed Last Great American Whale
LOU REED - LAST GREAT AMERICAN WHALE They say he didn't have an enemy His was a greatness to behold He was the last surviving progeny The last one on this side of the world He measured half a mile from tip to tail Silver and black with powerful fins They say he could split a mountain in two That's how we got the Grand Canyon Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes Some say they saw him off the coast of Florida My mother said she saw him in Chinatown But you can't always trust your mother Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day The lighthouse glows ghostly there at night The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor's son And he'd been on death row since 1958 The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig Spit on Indians and lots worse The old chief buried a hatchet in his head Life compared to death for him seemed worse The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing And tried to conjure up a storm or rain The harbor parted and the great whale sprang full up And caused a huge tidal wave The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief The tribe let out a roar The whites were drowned The browns and reds set free But sadly one thing more Some local yokel member of the NRA Kept a bazooka in his living room And thinking he had the chief in his sights Blew the whale's brains out with a lead harpoon Well Americans don't care for much of anything Land and water the least And animal life is low on the totem pole With human life not worth more than infected yeast Americans don't care too much for beauty They'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach And complain if they can't swim They say things are done for the majority Don't believe half of what you see And none of what you hear It's a lot like what my painter friend Donald said to me "Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"
