[Frontierenergy1]

The National Anthem of Peak Oil (from about 30 years ago):

Tower of Power

There's Only So Much Oil in the Ground


There's only so much oil in the ground
Sooner or later there won't be much around
Tell that to your kids while you driving downtown
That there's only so much oil on the ground

Can't cut loose without that juice
Can't cut loose without that juice
If we keep on like we doing things for sure
Will not be cool - It's a fact
We just ai't got suffiecient fuel

There's only so much oil in the ground
Sooner or later there won't be none around
Alternate sources of power must be found
Cause there's only so much oil in the ground

There's only so much oil in the earth
It's a fact of life - for what it's worth
Something every little boy and girl should know since birth
That there's only so much oil in the ground

There's no excuse for our abuse
No excuse for our abuse
We just assume that we will not
Exceed the oil supply
But soon enough the world will watch the wells run dry.

[Fatherof4]

Mike Carrick at SF Oil Awareness has this post on Peak Oil Songs from David Rovics.

Worth a listen! Link to the blog entry

[wisegoat]

wow i expected crap, but this is a little better

... actually it's pretty good! go check it out guys

[qibu]

Impressive. The singer has a lot of energy and the harmony with his guitar is good. I agree, it's worth listening even if i don't undestand english well.

[oli]

I find "Front Line Assembly" to be an apt band for the petrocalyptically-inclined amongst us. Particularly their album Tactical Neural Implant.

[Tyler_JC]

Wow, great stuff!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')When the cars and planes stopped running
And the dollar hit the floor
And the hordes of hungry children started knocking on your door
When unemployed men in the streets said blame the Arabs for our plight
Did you shout with dirt held high, farmers of the world unite!
Did you ride an oxen to town saying join the green revolution or die?
In the years before the oil wells ran dry

[medicvet]

I was very impressed...good stuff there!

[BabyPeanut]

Somebody needs to update Christmas At Ground Zero by Weird Al Yankovicto be Peak Oil.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t's Christmas at ground zero
There's music in the air
The sleigh bells are ringing and the carolers are singing
While the air raid sirens blare

It's Christmas at ground zero
The button has been pressed
The radio just let us know
That this is not a test

Everywhere the atom bombs are dropping
It's the end of all humanity
No more time for last-minute shopping
It's time to face your final destiny

It's Christmas at ground zero
There's panic in the crowd
We can dodge debris while we trim the tree
Underneath the mushroom cloud

You might hear some reindeer on your rooftop
Or Jack Frost on your windowsill
But if someone's climbing down your chimney
You better load your gun and shoot to kill

It's Christmas at ground zero
And if the radiation level's okay
I'll go out with you and see all the new
Mutations on New Year's Day

It's Christmas at ground zero
Just seconds left to go
I'll duck and cover with my Yuletide lover
Underneath the mistletoe

It's Christmas at ground zero
Now the missiles are on their way
What a crazy fluke, we're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday

[bruin]

We can play oil musical chairs as we fight for the last barrels.

[EdF]

One of my favorites is "Pride of Man" from Quicksilver Messenger Service:

"Turn around, go back down, back the way you came ... Broken pride of man, broken in the dust again".

- Ed

[JohnLudi]

Well...far be it for me to toot my own horn and all (shameless self-promotion alert), but I posted this one before on one of the other Peak Oil song threads.

My latest album (Rise Above or Fall Below) is kind of one big anti-consumerist rant, but one song in particular is directed at the cause and effect of our...um..."non-negociable" way of life...it's called SUV.

You can download it for free: http://johnludi.com/SUV.mp3

And here are the oh-so-perky lyrics:

SUV

It’s all going to go away
so use up all you can today
Hoard all the manna of progress you find,
suck it all down ‘til it makes you go blind
You were drinking your ambrosia and feeding on the fat
as the dinner bell of plenty started ringing flat.
You were basking in the sweetness of luxury and leisure,
wading in the excrement of unconscionable pleasure
Buy a thing, another thing, and then some things to house them,
eat the leaves and gnaw the roots and suck the juicy stems.
Frivolous and carefree, living second to second…
(the skeletal hand of the future now beckons).
Spend your way to nowhere with debts you’ll never manage
Soulless and rapacious and mindless of the damage
Driving towards the better life (always one purchase farther)
down a road paved with all the lives our countries bartered

Driving by in my SUV.

The worlds is a playground for your appetites,
as long as it feels good it must be right.
And little dark people are working so hard
so you can max out your fat credit card.
You have hungers and desires the past could not imagine
and you don’t see how your consumption fans the fires of famine.
Images flicker on the screen that speak of desperation
caused by the sick desires of a fat decadent nation.

Watch them die on my big TV.

-------------------

There are lots of other equally-as-depressing songs for you to contemplate our collective doom by...all free downloads...collect them all before someone shoots me...

[Art_Vandelai]

I think probably the ultimate Peak Oil song would be Sum 41's "We're All To Blame". Very insightful for a bunch of teenagers.

Take everything left from me
ALL
TO
BLAME

How can we still succeed, taking what we don't need?
Telling lies as alibis, selling all the hate that we breed
SUPERSIZE OUR TRAGEDIES(You can’t define me, or justify greed)
Bought in the land of the free!
(LAND, FREE)

And we're all to blame
We've gone too far
From pride to shame
We're trying so hard
We're dying in vain
We're hopelessly blissful and blind
To all we are
We want it all
With no sacrifice!!

Realize we spend our lives living in a culture of fear
Stand to salute, say thanks to the man of the year
How did we all come to this?(You can’t define me, or justify greed)
A greed that we just can't resist!
(RE-SIST)

And we're all to blame
We've gone too far
From pride to shame
We're trying so hard
We're dying in vain
We're hopelessly blissful and blind
To all we are
We want it all
Everyone wants it all
with no
SACRIFICE!!

Tell me now, what have we done? We don't know!
I can't allow what has begun to tear me down,
Believe me now, we have no choice left
With our backs against the wall!!

And now we're all to blame
We've gone too far
From pride to shame
We're hopelessly blissful and blind
When all we need
Is something true
To believe
Don't we all?
Everyone, everyone
We will fall

'Cause we're all to blame
We've gone too far
From pride to shame
We're trying so hard
We're dying in vain
We want it all
Everyone, don't we all?

[Jenab]

"Children died, days grew cold,
A crust of bread would buy a bag of gold...
I wish we'd all been ready."

[PenultimateManStanding]

This came up in the random word association thread which I like so much. I'm a big Bob Dylan fan and one of his greatest songs is Desolation Row. Noah's Great Rainbow is one of an endless supply of poignant lines.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hey're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

[Specop_007]

I'm partail to AC/DC

AC/DC - HELLS BELLS

I'm a rolling thunder, a pouring rain
I'm comin' on like a hurricane
My lightning's flashing across the sky
You're only young but you're gonna die

I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives
Nobody's putting up a fight
I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get you, Satan get you

CHORUS:
Hell's Bells
Yeah, Hell's Bells
You got me ringing Hell's Bells
My temperature's high, Hell's Bells

I'll give you black sensations up and down your spine
If you're into evil you're a friend of mine
See my white light flashing as I split the night
'Cause if good's on the left, then I'm stickin' to the right

I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives
Nobody's puttin' up a fight
I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get you, Satan get you

CHORUS

yeow
Hell's Bells, Satan's comin' to you
Hell's Bells, he's ringing them now
Hell's Bells, the temperature's high
Hell's Bells, across the sky
Hell's Bells, they're takin' you down
Hell's Bells, they're draggin' you around
Hell's Bells, gonna split the night
Hell's Bells, there's no way to fight, yeah

Ow, ow, ow, ow

Hell's Bells

[PenultimateManStanding]

Screw ACDC. Any other Dylan fans here? One Too Many Mornings is another lovely Dylan tune. How about Just Like a Woman?

[PenultimateManStanding]

Johnny Cash, god rest his soul, did a whole gig with Dylan in 1969. Man that was sweet.

[lotrfan55345]

He was a gay?

Gay people make me hollar and sweat.

/i really don't know what im talking about

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'S')crew ACDC. Any other Dylan fans here? One Too Many Mornings is another lovely Dylan tune. How about Just Like a Woman?

[Hawkcreek]

--