words and music by Malvina Reynolds



There's a cement octopus sits in Sacramento, I think,

Gets red tape to eat, gasoline taxes to drin,

And it grows by day and it grows by night

And it rolls over everything in sight.

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery.



Who knows how the monster started to grow that way;

Its parents are frightened and wish it would go away.

But the taxes keep coming, they have to be spent

On big bull dozers and tanks of cement,

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery.



That octopus grows like a science-fiction blight,

The Bay and the Ferry building are out of sight,

The trees that stood for a thousand years,

We watch them falling through our tears

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery.



Dear old MacLaren won't take this lying down,

We can hear his spirit move in the sandy ground,

He built this Eden on the duney plain,

Now they're making it a concrete desert again,

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery.



The men on the highways need those jobs, we know

Lets put them to work planting new trees to grow.

Building new parks where kids can play,

Pushing that cement monster away,

Oh, stand by me and protect that tree

From the freeway misery