Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems  



Skagit Valley Forever

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1970 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1998. a.k.a. "Skagit Valley." When Malvina was a guest on Art Finley’s radio program in Vancouver, B.C., Art told her about a demonstration the next day against the flooding of Skagit Valley. She wrote the song, but because she was on tour and couldn’t stay to sing it, a local singer did instead.


There's a fine green valley not far from Vancouver,
Home of the black bear, the marten and the cougar.
It's the tree rich valley where the Skagit River flows,
A home for God's creatures since Heaven only knows.

Chorus:
Skagit Valley, Skagit Valley,
Ray Williston is selling you away.
Skagit Valley, Skagit Valley,
They would turn you to a mud pond
To run the Coca Cola coolers in Seattle, U.S.A.

Well, the parks are getting fewer, the trees are getting thin,
The cities are all reaching out to take the wildwood in.
The world is getting poorer with every mile they clear,
And they're selling Skagit acres for five dollars fifty cents a year.

(Chorus)

Oh my sisters and my brothers in this shining northern land,
It's time to get together and take each other's hand,
And ring around the wilderness to keep the gangs away
Who would ravage our sweet country for a shameful pocketful of pay.

Skagit Valley, Skagit Valley,
No grabber will get you for a prize.
Skagit Valley, Skagit Valley,
We'll let no vandal drown you,
We'll keep you as we found you,
British Columbia's forest paradise.


Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears:
---- The Malvina Reynolds Songbook
---- There's Music in the Air: Songs for the Middle-Young

Other place(s) where the music to this song appears:
---- Sing Out!, Volume 21(1) (1971), pp. 24-25

Malvina Reynolds recording(s) on which this song is performed:
---- The Ultimate Pollution
---- Mama Lion
---- Ear to the Ground
---- listen to youtube.com video


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