This is a song I wrote about what’s been going on in my neighborhood in south Denver the past couple of years. Developers are buying up the old one-story houses, tearing them down, scraping the lot, and building big, ugly 3-story triplexes with 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 3 living rooms.
The demo has some guitar mistakes in the solos but I put it up anyway. I banged this out pretty fast.
The Neighborhood (What Are We Losing?)
by Rob Roper 2nd Draft May 30, 2014
A small house is sold
A small house is torn down
What the hell’s going on
on my side of town?
Blue collar out
Suit and tie in
The swingset is gone
and so are the grandkids
This house was built
in 1953
when 1000 square feet
was all you’d need
They were paying rent
for all these years
Now they have 30 days
to pack up and leave
Chorus:
What are we losing?
We’re losing the neighborhood.
A big ugly box
goes up in its place
4000 square feet
multiplied by 3
That takes a lot to heat
and a lot of A/C
So you burn more coal
put a bigger hole in the ozone
A 3-car garage
where’s the oak tree?
How much room
does a lawyer need?
Soon the robins
will have nowhere to nest
And a gang of pigeons
will be all that’s left
(Chorus)
Builders on the make
Politicians on the take
history and memories
raped and scraped
They only care about money
and making it fast
Historic Preservation
that’s a thing of the past
(Chorus)