Marvin Gaye recorded his album What’s Goin On? In 1971.  Commercially successful, What’s Goin On? is a concept album with most of the songs segueing into the next as a song cycle.  The album ends as it begins with a reprise of the album’s open theme, “What’s Goin On?”  The songs establish a narrative told by an African American veteran recently returning from Vietnam only to encounter bigotry, injustice, and violence in his homeland.  The various lyrics explore drug abuse, the war, poverty, and race relations.  “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology” is the second track on the album, following the opening song, “What’s Goin On?”   For decades the song was known as one of the most poignant anthems expressing regret over environmental degradation.

 

“Big Yellow Taxi” was originally written, composed, and recorded by Joni Mitchell in 1970.  Expressing ironic environmental concern, the lyrics conclude with a person note that refers to the title:

 

Late Last night

I heard the screen door slam

And a big yellow taxi

Took away my old man

 

These lines have variously been interpreted as referring to Mitchell’s boyfriend or father leaving in a yellow taxi (to find a better place, to end the relationship?), but could also refer to a police car taking “my old man” away.  Mitchell was originally from Toronto, and until the 1980s Toronto police cars were painted yellow.

 

Interestingly, in later versions Mitchell and others changed theses lines:

Mitchell—a big yellow tractor pushed around my house and land

Bob Dylan—A big yellow bulldozer took away the house and land

Counting Crows—a big yellow taxi took my girl away

Amy Grant changed the most famous lines—"They steamrolled paradise/and put up a parking lot.”

 

One of the most famous American folk songs, “This Land Is Your Land” was written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 as a critical response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”  Coming out of the Great Depression, Guthrie grew tired of constantly hearing Kate Smith sing “God Bless America” on the radio and wrote his response as a song for disenfranchised people.

 

After being accused of writing pop songs of little cultural relevance (California and surfing), the Beach Boys wrote and recorded “Don’t Go Near the Water” in 1971.  The song puts an ironic, environmental spin on the band’s traditional beach-and-surf songs that—instead of inviting people to the beach—warns them to avoid the water.  Even more ironic, Brian Wilson, considered greatest song writer of the group, always hated going into the water.

 

“Beds Are Burning” was originally written and performed by the Australian band Midnight Oil in 1987 and was popular world-wide.  In 1986 the band toured the Outback and performed for remote Aboriginal communities and the members were struck by the poverty and sickness of the people they encountered.  In response to the unjust treatment of the Aboriginal Australians and environmental exploitation, the song proposes to give the land back to its first inhabitants.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named the song in its list of the “500 songs that Shaped rock and Roll.”  Midnight Oil performed—and still performs—the song in front of literally billions of people, including at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

 

With thanks to Wikipedia among other internet sources