Houses in the Fields
by John Gorka
This song from the album Jack's Crows was written about a road in eastern Pennsylvania, but the same thing is happening all over the U.S. When a farmer can make more money from a cell tower on a few hundred square feet of land than he can on the crops from hundreds of acres, why wouldn't he just sell the whole thing to "developers"? For years I've been watching as my drive to work has gone from fields of corn, grazing cows, and marshland to vast expanses of cookie cutter houses. I know there are more people in this world all the time, and they have to live somewhere, but it is still sad to see the topsoil scraped off a huge farm in preparation for the construction of 1300 houses. It happens every day.
I used to have the song lyrics here, but removed them to comply with the copyright policy. I hope to find the time some day to try to get permission to post them again.