Captain Beefheart is my favourite. His music was so incredible and his poetry so unique. Nobody does it like the Captain. His band truly are magic.
This particular song encapsulates my own view on ecology and the environment. We’re evolved from what went before and we’re merely passing through. Soon we will just be another layer in the sediment, another set of bones to pull out of the tar-pit and wonder at.
The sad part is that we seem to be so determined to speed up our own exit and taking everything else down with us. You wouldn’t think we were intelligent at all, would you?
I went to the tar-pit at La Brea in Los Angeles where they’d pulled out all those fossil dinosaur bones who’d got trapped in the tar.
I think we’re trapped in the tar of our own greed and selfishness
I sure hope we get to put our feet free before we’re sucked down! I’d like my grandchildren to see a wild gorilla and a tree.
Smithsonian Institute Blues (The Big Dig)
Come on down t’ the big dig
Come on down t’ the big dig
Come on t’ the big dig
Singin’ the Smithsonian Institute blues
Singin’ the Smithsonian Institute blues
The way it’s goin’ La Brea tar pits
I know you just can’t lose
The new dinosaur is walkin’ in the old one’s shoes
Come on down t’ the big dig
Can’t get around the big dig
This may be premature but if I’m wrong
You can just say it’s the first time I was happy t’ be confused
Singin’ the Smithsonian Institute blues
Alll you new dinosaurs
Now it’s up t’ you t’ choose
It sure looks funny for a new dinosaur
T’ be in an old dinosaur’s shoes
Dina Shore’s shoes
Dinosaur shoes
C’mon down to the big dig
You can’t get around the big dig
C’mon to the big dig
Ya can’t get around the big dig
Singin’ the Smithsonian Institute blues