Mike Peterson

and his

Virtual Progressive Rock Band

Coal

Words and Music

Mike Peterson

Players

Mike Peterson - Vocals, Virtual Instruments

Bill Giles - Bass

Denny Bales - Guitars, Keyboards, Backing vocals

Version

Pre-Release 4/16/2014

Notes

This was the most difficult one yet. It seemed to take forever, and I almost quit several times while creating it

Virtual guitar keeps getting better. The acoustic parts use RealGuitar and the electric parts use Electri6ity

The song was finished in its original form when Bill and Denny joined the project

Bill composed a new bass part, Denny played the some of the guitar parts as written, and composed some additional vocal, guitar and keyboard parts

Lyrics

Every day
The miners face
A grueling toil
In a dangerous place

They risk their lives
And scar the Earth
To feed
Our addiction

Every day
The fires burn
The steam expands
And the rotors turn

And every time
You flip the switch
You're part
Of the problem

Every day
Pollution flows
It fills the sky
And the problem grows

If only it was
More expensive
It would be
Easier to quit


For millions of years
The Earth has played
A geological game

Sometimes we win
Sometimes we lose
But the rules remain the same

Sometimes we dig up molybdenum
Sometimes we even strike gold

We hope for the best
But we take what we get

We use all our science
And cleverness, yet

We always observe
That the outcome is set
By forces beyond our control

When we look at the ground
And we realize that we're cursed
With an abundance of coal


Of all the forms of energy
This has to be the worst

But some say
We can fix it
If we try

So they gasify and sequester
But it’s wasteful
So when they are done
There’s not much left
But promises
And lies

We shouldn’t quit now
The coalmen will say

Clean coal is coming
Maybe someday

But maybe it’s true
That we don’t have a way
To solve all the problems we’ve found

And maybe we’d all
Be better off
If we leave it in the ground