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The Future Ain't What it Used to Be

from For the Sake of the Song by Sean McGaughey

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about

This song is as relevant as when I wrote it 15 years ago.
As a child, I used to get lost in the pages of my grandfather's Popular Mechanics magazines with their descriptions of the the inventions and products of the future. I'm still waiting for my jet car.

lyrics

The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be


(Sept. 21- Oct 5, 2003) ©2003 S. McGaughey
Oct. 10 Major revisions—Music by Sean McGaughey,
Lyrics by Sean McGaughey and Brian Rawlins

When I was a young boy I often would roam
Through the basement of grandpa’s home
I once found a stack of old magazines.
Popular Mechanics fueled my dreams.

I would read about homes of the future
How we’d all fly around in our cars
We'd live in apartments under the sea
and vacation on Venus or Mars.

Chorus
So where the hell is my jet car?
Nobody lives under the sea.
I could sure use a robot to do all my chores.
Waiting for peace, an end to the wars.
(And) we're still fighting hunger and illness
While children live on the streets.
If this is the 21st century,
It don't look like the future to me,
The Future ain’t what it used to be

We knew for certain that cancer
Would soon be just stars in the sky
With the first giant steps upon the moon
There was nothing we couldn’t try.

They said that computers and robots
would be at our beck and call
We all would be healthy
even folksingers wealthy
millionaires one and all

(Chorus)

(Bridge)
We thought that the future was so far away
Turned out to be just the same yesterday.

And we blame the poor
for getting poorer all the time
Is this the future they had in mind?

credits

from For the Sake of the Song, released December 5, 2004
Sean McGaughey, Guitars and Vocals

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Sean McGaughey Ontario

I am a folk singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and children's entertainer in Simcoe County Ontario. By day, I am a mild-mannered Elementary School teacher-librarian.

Since 2013, I have been participating the the February Album Writing Month Challenge at fawm.org to write 14 songs in February.

This year I challenged myself to up my musicianship and production values. This is the result. ... more

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