Most of you already know I’ve been writing and performing songs for 30 years, mostly hidden behind my journalism. Only a few of my tunes cross directly over into my “beat” - and none more so than “Liberated Carbon,” which I wrote as the United States invasion of Iraq played out in the early 00’s and which I included on my first album, A Very Fine Line, in 2013.
I’d first touched on how oil access delineates areas of global interest and conflict in 1991, as I explored yesterday:
But I thought it worth posting the annotated lyrics to my song as the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz and American, Israeli and Iranian salvos continue, and the oil (and gas) impacts of this new Middle East war move to the foreground. Do check the footnotes!
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LIBERATED CARBON
music and lyrics © 2013 Andrew Revkin
It took a thousand generations1 for our species to rise.
But gathering and hunting was no way to get by.
We yearned to burn more than dung and sticks.
Then someone2 came along and said, “Hey, try lighting this.”
He opened up the ground and showed us coal3 and oil.4
He said, “Come liberate some carbon. It’ll make your blood boil.”
Liberated carbon, it’ll spin your wheels.
Liberated carbon it’ll nuke your meals.
Liberated carbon, it’ll turn your night to day.
Come on and liberate some carbon, babe, it’s the American way.
Now I got peat swamp fossils running my TV.5
BP’s black label burns in my S.U.V.
We can light up the planet like a Christmas tree.
They say that things are getting hot but, hey, we’ve got A.C.6
Liberated carbon, it’ll spin your wheels.
Liberated carbon it’ll nuke your meals.
Liberated carbon, it’ll turn your night to day.
Come on and liberate some carbon, babe, it’s the American way.
Pump those electrons and that gasoline.
No sweat or hurry, just turn on a machine.
We sent an army to the desert to keep this country free,
And to liberate some carbon, baby, for you and me…7
Liberated carbon it’ll spin your wheels.
Liberated carbon, it’ll nuke your meals.
Liberated carbon, it’ll turn your night to day.
Come on and liberate some carbon, babe, it’s the American way.
There are various performances online, including with John Munson, the bass player from the Minneapolist band Semisonic, at the 2018 National Geographic Explorers Festival, and with melting ice chunks onstage at a Play for the Planet event in San Francisco.
To support my music side, you can buy my album, A Very Fine Line, on Bandcamp or buy Liberated Carbon as a single.
Actually more like 12,000 generations (300,000 years divided by 25-year generations).
My early version of this song had “Satan” instead of “someone,” but I changed that after I fully absorbed the reality that energy access, including to fossil fuels, has been a huge boon - just with adverse side effects. A nudge from climate contrarian Tom Nelson helped. Let me know what you think about this!
Earliest systematic coal exploitation for fuel extended to ~3600 B.P. (Science Advances)
The history of global oil production (Cutter Cleveland, Boston University)
How Is Coal Formed? (Kentucky Geological Survey)
Rising Air-Conditioning Use Intensifies Global Warming (Zhang et al, Nature Communications)
War, Oil and the World Economy (Paul Krugman)
