I started thinking about part of a lyric from a song about the progress we have made and looked up the rest of the lyrics. I was struck by how well the words capture aspects of our social condition. Take a look –

The Progress Suite

Editorial (lyrics)

“Look at the progress we’ve made

Get your vitamin quota

In your soup ready-made

Forget that there’s hunger around you

Look at the progress we’ve seen

Perhaps you should cut down

On sugar and cream

You can’t button your jacket around you

Overcrowded world

What happens now

Better pray to your gods

And hope that somehow

Far from the shack you call home

They aren’t burning the grain

That has ripened and grown

‘Cause the prices have fallen again, so

Eat up your rice, Billy dear

They’re starving in India

At least that’s what I hear

Come on, my child, cram it down you

But we are okay

In our shiny new car

Look at us now

You can see we’ve come far

Here I am playing electric guitar

Look at the progress we’ve made”

Now consider that this song was first released in 1967, that’s 46 years ago. Sadly, little has changed that can really be called progress. The artists were Chad and Jeremy. The ablum influenced my early social development and political outlook.