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Meatloaf
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David Roth
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1
Way back in 1980 I was living in New York
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And I had a friend come stay with me and visit for a week
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He'd spent the year in India and many things had changed for him
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Among them, how he dressed and how he'd speak
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He talked of meditation and of inner peace and joy
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And of a new and healthy vegetarian diet
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He was looking good and sounding clear and wasn't eating meat
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So for the week that he was here I thought I'd try it
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That was 13 autumns gone and that's how long it's been since
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I've partaken of the pleasures of the masticated moo
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And then about a month ago I found myself in one of those
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Indelicate positions where I knew not what to do
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Some brand new friends invited me to dinner at their house
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And they'd also asked some 20 more to come for cake and hear me strum
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I tuned up and came to the table, all the food was served and ladled
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Every dish had three neat piles, I felt my knees go numb
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One pile was potatoes, and another was asparagus
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And a third pile had a neon sign proclaiming "Hah, I've got you now"
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For there upon my very plate, the stuff that I'd so long not ate
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A tender slice of meatloaf from a dear departed cow
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What do I do, what do I do, I panicked, I'll admit to you
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For this was one time in a hundred that I'd not forewarned my hosts
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That eating meat was something I no longer had a fancy for
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Once haunted by bad dreams of bovine ghosts
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Should I step up on my soapbox and recite my all-too well-worn speech
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How it takes some 16 pounds of grain to make one pound of rump
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Not to mention 2500 gallons of government-subsidized water
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And of grazing land transformed to fallow dump
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How all those cows are treated, what with cattle prods and crowded cages
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Pumped out full of hormones, fattened up and trapped like rats
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Not to mention how the human heart is stressed out by consumption
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Of their difficult-to-break-down cells and saturated fats
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On the other hand I hearkened back to nineteen hundred seventy nine
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My buddy Jim and I, backpacking through the South Pacific
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We landed in Samoa on the island of Savaii
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And the local people thought we were terrific
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So they convened a regal feast, no effort spared, no praise withheld
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I'll ne'er forget the feeling I got in my diaphragm
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As we entered in the sacred hut, where all the food was served and cut
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And there upon each taro leaf, a supple slice of Spam
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To them this was an honor, gourmet food from foreign country
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While to us it was disgusting - have you ever read the can?
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It's like all the stuff they sweep up off the floor in hot dog factories
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Hog pate´and swiney piglet marzipan
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But we ate that slice of Spam and we survived
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We accepted what they gave us and revived
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We didn't have the heart to say that Spam was gross and déclassé
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I ate a slice of Spam and I survived
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So here I am in Mystic with these natives of Connecticut
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I'm seeing them in long grass skirts and fanning me with leaves
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I pinch myself to try and waken from this flashback island dream
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Where meatloaf is the Spam that's up their sleeves
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Everything is in slow motion, down we sit and Grace is spoken
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Thank you for the bounteous gifts, and all that is forgived
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What happened next is something that I won't repeat and won't forget
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I ate a piece of meatloaf and I lived
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I ate a piece of meatloaf and I lived
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I jumped across the fence for one brief moment, sensitive
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To all the do's and don'ts and rights and wrongs and
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Potent narratives and then
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I ate a piece of meatloaf and I lived
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So now I know to call ahead when someone wants to break some bread
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And if by chance they're having meat I'll take my chance and spout
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Of numerous and many options, dietary re-adoptions
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All you gotta do is check 'em out
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But if someone offers you a gift, just weigh the factors, catch the drift
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And do what your heart dictates at the moment, in the Tao
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And if it's not what you prefer you have the privilege to defer
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I learned my lesson then and now, I did
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When I ate a piece of meatloaf
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(He ate a piece of meatloaf)
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I ate a piece of meatloaf and I lived
Meat Loaf - I'd Do Anything For Love (Bu...
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