This Water - lyrics

This Water
(kathy hussey)

This water puts food on the table
This water's like ice in my hands
This water means that I am able
To coax green from a dry brown land
This water runs from the mountains
This water runs through my veins
This water provided for many
Who came long before you and your personal gains

This water is blood
This water is years
This water's the ghost of my ancestors' tears
This water is hope
This water is frail
This water is life
And it's not for sale
This water's not for sale

This water makes the adobe
You fashion palaces from
This water's been a possession
Only since you and your money have come
This water has always been plenty
This water has sprouted each seed
But this water's never seen any
Thing that compares with your
Thirst or your greed

And my life's not some romantic notion
And it's hard as a tooth or a nail
Working this land is not a past I need rescuing from

<---previous song next song --->

The Story:

February 15 2002

I read an article in Smithsonian magazine called "Digging Ditches" (Bruce Selcraig)
which was about the "acequias" or irrigation ditches that have been used for generations
by the people of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado to irrigate the dry region
for farming. There are "majordomos" who oversee the water usage, and control how
much goes to whom along the length of the ditch, by regulating when and for how long
the individual gates can be opened. When the area started to be invaded by developers,
people began to sell their individual water rights, which, by definition, affects everyone who
shares the acequia.

Very complicated and very fascinating subject - the movie The Milagro Beanfield War was
about this very thing. I watched it after I had written the song...

In researching this I found out that it takes ONE MILLION gallons of water A DAY to keep a
golf course green in the desert. That includes all the golf courses in California, Arizona,
New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada...etc. Just another way in which we (I hesitantly include
myself) as a culture, place value on the most inane and destructive things. Why on earth (!)
couldn't we come up with a version of golf that could be played on the sort of terrain that
naturally occurs in this part of the country? But the people with all the money, and none
of the sense, have decided that they are entitled to amuse (and house, and feed) themselves
in whatever way they see fit, regardless of the impact on the environment or the future.

I could go on....

This was a Debut Tuesday * assignment - a song based on the article. I think Dan Schaefer
is the only one who joined me on this and his song "Majordomo" is pretty cool too.

* Debut Tuesday - I have run a writers night in nashville for many years,
   and one of the fun things that we do is pick a title every month...
   everyone who writes a song with that title "debuts" them on the last
  Tuesday of each month...