I Can Still Remember the Time Before the Crash

2004

originally published: oilcrash.com

I can still remember the time before the crash
when we all drove around in cars and I had lots of cash
and anything I wanted, I’d just go out and buy
I’d even drive a mile or two - just to buy a pie

but then the oil wars started and everything collapsed
the supermarket shelves were stripped before a month elapsed
and people all turned really grim and gained a hungry look
we’d steal from anyone at all we’d kill for things to cook

and everywhere disease and grief and bodies left to rot
while gangs of grim and brutal men would kill and steal and plot
and people fled the cities and countless numbers died
and everything was so so bad not even mothers cried

our house was one of many then, a normal family home
but it was stripped and burnt for fuel when we had left to roam
and I remember mum and dad, my little sister too
but they were killed and eaten back sometime in ‘22

and now I know I’m dying, I’ve left no living heirs
nobody is alive to know there’s not a soul who cares
there’s only me so damned hungry I’m gnawing at the trees
there’s no-one left to kill and eat oh God please help me please

and as I stagger on and on through burnt and plundered homes
I see the the signs of rage and ruin and countless human bones
I hear the starving pack of dogs that follow close behind
and I am now so close to death I hardly even mind

I fall and screaming dogs begin to rip and shred my life
my mind drifts back to days of oil and to my kids and wife
oh life was so so simple then and life was so so good
but all we had we wasted, we never understood


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