Last Great American Whale

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