D.O.A. - That's Progress Lyrics

(Performed with Jello Biafra)

Gimme a M (M), gimme an A (A), gimme an U (U), gimme a L (L)
Gimme your money! (Sure!)
What's that spell? (Maul!)
What's that spell? (Shopping maul!)

'scuse me, pardon my greed,
you're evicted, time to leave.
Don't matter if your family's lived here 30 years.

We're tripling the rent.
Time's up, the sheriff's here.
Too bad for you if you freeze out in the street.

The croissant and cookie palace downstairs will symbolize,
the old neighborhood whose soul has slowly died,
been gentrified.

Ah yeah! That's progress!
Doesn't progress make you feel good inside?

Cameras catch you runnin' red lights
schoolrooms with no windows,
computer picks your carreer at age 15.

Universal price code I.D.'s
with the stripe the laser reads
and records where you've been,
when you're sick and what you eat.

For every spy in government there's 50 private eyes,
who round up dirt on you to keep on file,
then sell the file.

Ah yeah! That's progress!
Doesn't progress make you feel good inside?
That's progress! That's progress!
Progress don't make me feel so good inside.

You can't live here, we won't hire you,
we know all the nasty things you do.
Bought a dossier on your whole life
clear back to the pranks you did in school at age 5.

There's millions on file
at the touch of a button.
Your boss or your landlord
will love our choice cuts of gossip
if it's lies, what can you do?
'cos it costs too much to sue
the last person who'll ever see your file is you.

Had enough, I moved back home
to the mountains where I belong
but ski resorts have tamed the wild west.
The hills we used to roam
now they're privately owned
and scarred with cheezy suburbs and cement.

The 'tracts for sale' sign promises 'deer in your back yard'
if the deer somehow get past the fences and guards
and the industrial 'park'.

Oh no! Not again! All this progress makes me feel ill inside!
That's progress! That's progress!
Looks like I'll have to move to yellowknife.
Progress (bleah!) [4x]
Your idea of progress wrecks too many lives.