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    Scott Cook

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    1. Talkin' Anthropocalypse Blues

    From the recording Go Long (2015)

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    Talkin' Anthropocalypse Blues

    Scott Cook and the Long Weekends
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    Lyrics

    Remember Y2K?
    Remember what you did that day?
    Were you scared the machines would turn on us all?
    Or maybe your phone just wouldn't work?
    Maybe aliens would come to earth?
    Could've been a mushroom cloud, or heaven's bugle call
    Me and some friends took a trip down south
    And we were on a beach, hanging out
    With folks from all over the world, feeling nothing but fine
    We drank until we got demented
    Counted down for each time zone represented
    And partied like it was 1999
    'Cept it actually was, it wasn't just a figurative thing
    And when it turned 2000, well, we kept on partying
    Getting kinda silly by that point
    Stumbling around, yelling at clouds
    The new millennium was looking pretty messy so far

    But you can't always party daily and nightly
    And not everyone takes those kind of things lightly
    Some folks got more serious concerns
    Take William Miller, back in 1818
    With all the scripture he'd been studying
    He got to figuring out when Jesus would return
    Once he was done calculating
    He got to proselytizing & debating
    And within several years he rounded up thousands more
    They had pamphlets and meetings, the more the merrier
    Saying God would cleanse the sanctuary or
    Something like that, October, 1844
    And after waiting years for their coming king
    They started giving away everything
    Unconcerned with possessions or employment
    But when the day finally rolled around
    And Jesus was nowhere to be found
    They had what was called "The Great Disappointment"
    Some said they'd botched their calculations
    Used the wrong calendar or computations
    And He was still coming, just a few months or years later
    Some other folks just figured they'd been wrong
    Figured they'd better try and keep their home
    And think of a way to explain it to the neighbours
    And somehow find the wherewithal
    To stock that pantry after all;
    Heck, maybe they should even go and see the dentist!
    But some other folks insisted it really did happen
    Just not on earth, but up in heaven
    And they became the Seventh-Day Adventists
    Now, if there's any Adventists listening
    I really don't want to offend you...
    Really, I've got friends who are Adventists!
    I mean, I met one one time
    Besides, we've all got crazy ideas of our own
    For instance, I thought this would be
    A nice little subject to write a song about!

    Back in the first century, off the Turkish coast
    On a little Greek island called Patmos
    A guy wrote down a bunch of visions he thought reliable
    And rather than asking "what's this guy on?"
    People named it the Apocalypse of John
    And 300 years later they decided it was in the Bible
    And I grew up believing it'd all come true
    Just when and how nobody knew
    But God was coming back to get His biz done
    First time by water, next time fire
    Righteous and wicked to divide
    And we'd get a new world in exchange for this one
    And it was gonna happen soon!
    'Cause things are obviously getting worse
    There's no turning it around
    There's no saving this Earth
    Nothing worth saving anyway!
    You got men marrying men, men marrying dogs, trees...
    Next thing you know some guy's gonna marry his truck!
    It's just wrong!

    Now some cheeky folks offer a service
    To believers who are getting nervous
    To ease their mind about their dogs and cats
    'Cause pets don't get raptured, you see
    So these folks say, for a small fee
    They'll feed and walk 'em in the unlikely event of that
    And boy, if it happens like they say
    And all the believers are borne away
    You can be sure those atheists'll come around then!
    Once they find out they lost the bet
    They'll take real good care of your pets
    It might be their last chance left at gettin' in!
    It's written no man knows the day of the Lord,
    But I saw it on some big billboards!
    Harold Camping figured it out, and wrote it up high
    God must've thought, who's this hack?
    Maybe He was even planning to come back
    And then didn't, just to spite the poor old guy!
    After May 21st went by, people laughed but he stuck to his guns
    Said it'd been a spiritual event, not a physical one...
    And the real thing was coming, October 21st, 2011... Poor Harold!
    He kinda lost his enthusiasm for predictions after that

    2012 was gonna be big, right?
    That shit was gonna be tight!
    They had special calculations we could rely on
    This wicked old world's gotta make room
    It's the start of a new baktun
    According to the calendar of the Mayans
    Well, those Mayan dudes may've been rough
    But they sure did make some amazing stuff
    And they really must've been rapidly evolving
    They didn't waste time with messy elections
    They put the pedal down on natural selection
    By cutting off your head if you lost a ballgame
    But what'd they think 2012 would mean?
    Would the poles reverse? Would the sun turn green?
    Would we see the planet Nibiru? Would it destroy Man?
    Or was it the dawn of the Aquarian Age
    Our ascension to another vibratory stage
    Without war, injustice, materialism, or boy bands?
    Terence McKenna predicted the singularity
    With all the hard-earned sincerity
    And certainty that goes with dedicated research
    See, he made a computer program, threw the I Ching
    Ate psilocybin mushrooms and some other things
    And as a result, he was 'bout as sure as anyone on Earth
    Funny thing about being sure:
    The more you are, the less I believe you
    Especially if it's that crazy-eyed, foaming at the mouth kind of sure
    The kind where no matter what happens, it still proves you're right!
    And if you don't see it
    Well, it was just more of a hidden, spiritual thing...
    Anybody see a pattern here?

    We're pretty good at getting it wrong
    This song'd be even more stupidly long
    If I tried to tally up everybody's guesses
    One thing in common with all these tales
    They depend on someone besides ourselves
    As if we won't have to clean up our own messes
    As if we're the last people on earth
    As if these times are the craziest there ever were
    As if we're not just holding space here for our grandkids
    As if it's all gonna turn to black and white
    And everyone's gonna see the light
    And convincing won't be as hard as it always is
    Like we won't have to change minds one by one
    It'll just happen, it'll just get done
    We won't have to take time with all the messy stuff
    Of building bridges, loving people in
    Realizing when we're wrong even
    And learning how to stop when we've had enough
    Sounds like a pretty tall order, right?
    God help us, you say? Or what?
    It's gonna take a miracle to save us from ourselves, right?
    What if we're the only miracle we've got?

    This world has gotta end
    This world has gotta end
    It's on us to make a new one my friends!

    • stay kind •

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