Here’s a spoof on the song “America the Beautiful!”

America the What?

Verse 1: O beautiful for specious guys Who piously declare, “That’s progress’ price,” as fact’ry stacks Spew poison in the air. America, America, Smog smears its grays on thee; We stain thy prime with soot and grime And strontium ninety!

Verse 2: O beautiful for strip-mine pit Where once the laurel bloomed; For brooklets running sulphur-stained And rotten egg perfumed. America, America, On bureaucrats cry shame; For canyons dammed and us flim-flamm’d in Reclamation’s name!

Verse 3: O beautiful for scenery Black’d out by billboard’s span; For nauseous stick of sew’rs we drink Where once pure rivers ran. America, America, What thieves thy people be, Who rob from earth their children’s birth-Right, Nature’s legacy!

Verse 4: O beautiful for neon sign By big-dam power lit; For carrion of countless cars On hillside charnel pit. America, America, Whom ev’ry gully robs; Thy landscape slopped with litter dropped By (let us face it) slobs!

Verse 5: O beautiful for highways broad, With beer cans tightly hemm’d; For marshes drained and dollars gained And water-fowl condemn’d. America, America, God grant us sanity; With wealth we’re blest, yet foul our nest And then chop down the tree!

Sources

Photo courtesy of Folder 9, MG 478, Tom Kovalicky Papers, 1965-2005