The Browning of the Green - Ian Anderson

Exponential family planning:

Let me play the numbers game

Sign up for some benefits, get my

Dues and stake a claim

Spill out to suburbia then spread

Onwards to the country wide

And when the last plot’s taken, I’ll

Spill out on to the other side

It’s the browning of the green: we’ll

Be tight as canned sardine

Lemmings to the right and the left of

Us and all points in between…

It’s the browning of the green

Be fruitful: nothing to it.

Fill the

Earth, subdue it, multiply

It’s written in that Goodly Book.

So

It’s really best that I comply

Another baby-booming bloomer?

Imbecile fecundity?

Another mouth, but what the Hell?

Child benefits, they come for free

It’s the browning of the green: we’ll

Be tight as canned sardine

Lemmings to the right and the left of

Us and all points in between…

It’s the browning of the green

A little boy, a little girl: quite

Perfect but it won’t suffice

Bouncing bairns upon my knee;

Six or seven might be nice

Come, time to go with Daddy, find

Ourselves some open playground space

On these concrete fields of England, this

Blessed realm, this blessed place

It’s the browning of the green: we’ll

Be tight as canned sardine

Lemmings to the right and the left of

Us and all points in between…

It’s the browning of the green