Lyrics The Browning of the Green - Ian Anderson

The Browning of the Green

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