Cement Octopus - Pete Seeger

There’s a cement octopus sits in Sacramento, I think

Gets red tape to eat, gasoline taxes to drin

And it grows by day and it grows by night

And it rolls over everything in sight

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery

Who knows how the monster started to grow that way;

Its parents are frightened and wish it would go away

But the taxes keep coming, they have to be spent

On big bull dozers and tanks of cement

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery

That octopus grows like a science-fiction blight

The Bay and the Ferry building are out of sight

The trees that stood for a thousand years

We watch them falling through our tears

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery

Dear old MacLaren won’t take this lying down

We can hear his spirit move in the sandy ground

He built this Eden on the duney plain

Now they’re making it a concrete desert again

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery

The men on the highways need those jobs, we know

Lets put them to work planting new trees to grow

Building new parks where kids can play

Pushing that cement monster away

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery