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