From the recording The Ballad of Sally Shaw
Lyrics
Ballad of Sally Shaw
Bridget Ahrens & Alana Shaw
Call me leftist, call me cranky
Something stinks at Vermont Yankee!
Where the mountains are green and the winters are cold
There’s a power plant that’s getting old
Those of us who live here have concern
The safety tests for this reactor
Need to add a big fudge factor
None of us would be surprised to learn.
Chorus:
Its pipes -- they leak
Its towers – they fall
Its dryers – they crack
And worst of all
The ones in charge, they say nothing’s amiss.
The wells, they glow
The leaks, they pool
Nuclear waste runs
By the school
Safety should trump corporate avarice.
Sally Shaw, she’s got some spark
No taste for glowing in the dark
She is not afraid to speak her mind
She’s got a kid, a garden too
She lives inside the plant’s milieu
It’s clear she has a nuclear ax to grind.
Call me leftist, call me cranky
Something stinks at Vermont Yankee!
MS degree beside her name
The NRC called, Sally came
A witness from Vermont to testify
She’d done the research, had the stats
Gave the scoop to those fat cats
Where profit lurks – the truth they just deny.
Thanks Ms. Shaw, the board did say
Now trot along, get on your way
We’ve got us some re-licensing to do
So Sally had to up the ante
Stop this unsafe power plant – e
With a handy pack of garden doo.
Her point dilute, Sal got emphatic
Something in her went dramatic
Stirred compost into his drinking glass –
The regulator cringed in fear
“It’s poisoning, so cavalier!
Where does this Vermonter get the brass?”
Chorus
Now Sally wears a scarlet C
A terrorist with farm debris
Because she had the gumption to insist
Everyone in Vermont oughta
Have un-tainted drinking water
Corporate money makers sure got pissed!
Call me leftist, call me cranky
Something stinks at Vermont Yankee!
Chorus reprise:
Its pipes -- they leak
Its towers – they fall
Its dryers – they crack
And worst of all
The ones in charge, they say nothing’s amiss.
The wells, they glow
The leaks, they pool
Nuclear waste runs
By the school
Let’s do like Sally did and say, Vermont won’t swallow this.