Nightmare Larry Norman

From the Album "So Long Ago The Garden"
(MGM Records 1973)

Larry Norman -- vocals, keyboards
Bob Brady -- piano
Tony Carr -- percussion
Malcolm Duncan -- saxophone

last night i had that same old dream
it rocked me in my sleep
and left me the impression
that the sandman plays for keeps
i dreamed i was in concert
on the middle of a cloud
john wayne and billy graham
were giving breath mints to the crowd
i fell through a hole in heaven
i left the stage for good
and when i landed on the earth
i was back in hollywood

the california earthquake
it tore the land in half
while san andreas cleared her throat
i heard tsunami laugh
the ground began to tremble
the land began to sway
and people in the other states
they were glad they'd moved away
when suddenly california
just floated in the breeze
while every thing that wasn't
sank down into the seas

and soon i saw atlantis
rumble and rise high
and the great egg of euphrates
came down out of the sky
out stepped shirley temple
with guy kibbee who was dead
and that communist bill robinson
whom shirley called black red
they had a marionette of harpo marx
they said it was a inside joke
but when i honked his horn he came alive
and these were the words he spoke

"with the continents adrift
and the sun about to shift
will the ice caps drown us all
or will we burn
we've polluted what we own
will we reap what we have sown?
are we headed for the end or can we turn?
we've paved the forest killed the streams
burned the bridges to our dreams
the earth is bursting at the seams
and in pain of childbirth screams
as it gives life to what seems
to either be an age that gleams
or simply lays there dying
if this goes on will life survive
how can it
out of the grave oh
who will save our planet?"

i said i'm pleased to meet you
i always thought you were a scream
he said "had you ever thought
of having helen keller in your dreams?"
i said errol flynn dropped by
but he tried to steal my girl
then she ran off with ronald colman
said something about a new world
now i'm stuck with my own cooking
hell i'm lonely can't you see
well he grabbed my leg
he said exactly eighty nine words to me
count 'em

"let the proud but dying nation
kiss the last generation
it's the year of the pill, age of the gland
we have landed on the moon
but we'll clutter that up soon
our sense of freedom's gotten out of hand
we kill our children swap our wives
we've learned to greet a man with knives
we swallow pills in fours and fives
our cities look like crumbling hives
man does not live he just survives
we sleep till he arrives
love is a corpse we sit and watch it harden
we left it oh so long ago the garden"

the strings snapped briskly then went slack
the marionette lay dead
while hoover played with the motorcade
the body slumped and bled
the man who held the camera
disappeared into the crowd
i said the hope of youth, fictitious truth,
lays covered in a shroud
then up walked elmo lincoln
and he said i beg your pardon
but we left it oh so long ago, the garden

we left it oh so long ago, the garden

** End of song