The Ballad of Boston's Stolen Drink

The following lyric is based on actual events, retold here as humorous history. The people of central Massachusetts submerged four towns when the Swift River was dammed to create the Quabbin Reservior to create a water supply for Boston, the largest city of the six New England States.

Town Meetings, which are mentioned, are the place where New Englanders could go ill-informed and sound off anyway. They often occurred in March, and allowed individual residents in the town-based society to have their way about everything down to where the new fire hydrants would be installed. In Vermont, these meetings were generally accompanied by a meal of donated food, and were sometimes referred to as "Vermont's Dinner Theater" due to the local theatrics so often on unrehearsed display.

Attendance by all voters at such events was simply assumed in times gone by, as the following actual notice reveals:

Warning of Town Meeting:
Residents Who Are Legal Voters
Are Hereby Notified and Warned to Meet

The refrain "I'm 'Agin It!" is a characteristically New England one, where a great deal of stubborn joy is derived based on things to which one is opposed. The irony is that Boston has long been champion of individual freedoms--a hotbed for activism of all kinds dating from before the Boston Tea Party. That she should have stolen her water supply at the cost of personal property rights of four towns of neighbors is a point where this grand old American city can properly be needled, as I do in the following lyric...


The Ballad of Boston's Drink
(I'm 'Agin It)
They flooded four towns so Boston could drink,
They dammed up the Swift for Bean Town's sink.
Now the water is rising and I must go,
But next Town Meeting, I'll let them know

I'm 'agin it! I'm 'agin it!
I'm dead set 'ain it!
I'm 'agin it! I'm 'agin it!
I'm dead set 'agin it!
Its a sin and a crime
And a dirty rotten shame.
I'm 'agin it all over again!

Grandma floating by in her galvanized tub,
Paddling with a broom as she rub-a-dub-dubs.
Granpa on stilts--he's wading like a bird!
In his winter longjohns, he looks absurd.

Mama on our roof, steaming fit to kill.
She loves her home, but she'll have to grow gills.
Papa rides the barn door with a rooster and a pig.
He tunes his fiddle and he plays this jig:

I'm 'agin it! I'm 'agin it!
I'm dead set 'ain it!
I'm 'agin it! I'm 'agin it!
I'm dead set 'agin it!
Its a sin and a crime
And a dirty rotten shame.
I'm 'agin it all over again!

Sister in her cradle caught the dob by the tail.
Wherever he swims, that's where she'll sail.
Parson on his pulpit, swirling on by,
Saying his prayers, trying to keep dry.

Brother rides shotgun on the chicken coop roof,
With poor Aunt Sally and three sheep on the hoof--
Trying to keep balance so their perch won't slant.
As they start to sink, they raise this chant:

I'm 'agin it! I'm 'agin it!
I'm dead set 'ain it!
I'm 'agin it! I'm 'agin it!
I'm dead set 'agin it!
Its a sin and a crime
And a dirty rotten shame.
I'm 'agin it all over again!

Well, that next Town Meeting, it never came.
Now the Swift swirls 'round down Bean Town's drain.
There in the city, they drink mighty good,
But here's one thing I'd tell them, if I could:

I'm 'agin it! I'm 'agin it!
I'm dead set 'ain it!
I'm 'agin it! I'm 'agin it!
I'm dead set 'agin it!
Its a sin and a crime
And a dirty rotten shame.
I'm 'agin it all over again!

c2009 Skip Johnson

"You shall not steal." (The eighth of the Ten Commandments) Exodus 20:15 NIV