Malvina Reynolds: Song Lyrics and Poems  

The Falling of the Tree

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1965 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1993. In the Notes and Comments to her songbook The Muse of Parker Street Malvina writes of this song: "A subdivider on Harbor Point, at the north end of the Bay, cut down some great old trees near the home of Lois Knill, and she didn't like it."

He thought he owned the tree because he bought it.
But what does money have to do with trees?
She said the tree was hers because she loved it.
She didn't want to own it only let it be.

He thought he owned the land because he bought it.
But what does money have to do with land?
Older than he by many million years,
And here after the generations die.

He cut the tree down and the lady cried.
She called him pig, and wished she had a gun.
In court, her lawyer softly asked for pardon,
That she had been, he said emotional.
She cried and cursed for murder of a tree.

He thought he owned the tree because he bought it,
And like a feudal lord who had the right
To kill his wife if she got in his road,
Since it was his, he had the right to kill it.

The lovely tree, older and wiser,
Living in beauty, dying in awful silence,
Cut into nothing, while a woman cried.

Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears:
---- The Muse of Parker Street

Malvina Reynolds recording(s) on which this song is performed:
---- [none]