I heard this song on the CBC the other day, and found it on the web .. a good laugh.

Uncle Dave’s Grace:  lyrics by Peter Berryman, music by Lou Berryman

“We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing” Thanksgiving day, Uncle Dave was our guest

He reads the Progressive which makes him depressed

We asked Uncle Dave if he’d like to say grace,

A dark desolation crept over his face

“Thanks,” he began as he gazed at his knife,

“To poor Mr. Turkey for living his life

All crowded and cramped in a great metal shed

Where life was a drag then they cut off his head”

 

“Thanks,” he went on, “for the grapes in my wine

Picked by sick women of seventy-nine

Scrambling all morning for bunch after bunch

Then brushing the pesticides off of their lunch

Thanks for the stuffing all heaped on my fork

Shiny with sausage descended from pork

I think of the trucks full of full of pigs that I see

And can’t help imagine what they think of me”

 

Continuing, “I’d like to thank if you please

Our salad bowl hacked out of tropical trees

And for this mahogany table and chair

We thank all the jungles that used to be there

For cream in our coffee and milk in our mugs,

We thank all the cows full of hormones and drugs

Whose calves are removed at a very young age

And force-fed as veal in a minuscule cage”

 

“Oh thanks for the furnace that heats up these rooms

And thanks for the rich fossil fuel it consumes

Corrupting the atmosphere ounce after ounce

But we’re warm and toasty and that is what counts

I’m grateful,” he said, “for these clothes on my back

Lovely and comfy and cheap off the rack

Fashioned in warehouses noisy and cold

In China by seamstresses seven years old”

 

“And thanks for my silverware setting that shines

In memory of miners who died in the mines

Worn down by the shovelling of tailings in piles

Whose runoff destroys all the rivers for miles

We thank the reactors for our chandelier

Although the plutonium won’t disappear

For hundreds of decades it still will be there

But a few more Chernobyls and who’s gonna care?”

 

Sighed Uncle Dave, “though there’s more to be told

The wine’s getting warm and the bird’s getting cold”

And with that he sat down as he mumbled again

“Thank you for everything, amen”

We felt so guilty when he was all thru

It seemed there was one of two things we could do

 

Live without food, in the nude, in a cave,

Or next year have someone say grace besides Dave.