Last Great American Whale Lyrics - Reed Lou

LOU REED - LAST GREAT AMERICAN WHALE 

They say he didn't have an enemy 

His was a greatness to behold 

He was the last surviving progeny 

The last one on this side of the world 

He measured half a mile from tip to tail 

Silver and black with powerful fins 

They say he could split a mountain in two 

That's how we got the Grand Canyon 

Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes 

Some say they saw him off the coast of Florida 

My mother said she saw him in Chinatown 

But you can't always trust your mother 

Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day 

The lighthouse glows ghostly there at night 

The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor's son 

And he'd been on death row since 1958 

The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig 

Spit on Indians and lots worse 

The old chief buried a hatchet in his head 

Life compared to death for him seemed worse 

The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing 

And tried to conjure up a storm or rain 

The harbor parted and the great whale sprang full up 

And caused a huge tidal wave 

The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief 

The tribe let out a roar 

The whites were drowned 

The browns and reds set free 

But sadly one thing more 

Some local yokel member of the NRA 

Kept a bazooka in his living room 

And thinking he had the chief in his sights 

Blew the whale's brains out with a lead harpoon 

Well Americans don't care for much of anything 

Land and water the least 

And animal life is low on the totem pole 

With human life not worth more than infected yeast 

Americans don't care too much for beauty 

They'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream 

They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach 

And complain if they can't swim 

They say things are done for the majority 

Don't believe half of what you see 

And none of what you hear 

It's a lot like what my painter friend Donald said to me 

"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"