Where Do the Children Play, Now and Always

Well I think it's fine, building jumbo planes
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train
Switch on summer from a slot machine
Yes, get what you want to if you want
Cause you can get anything

 

I know we've come a long way
We're changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

 

Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass
For your lorry loads pumping petrol gas
And you make them long, and you make them tough
But they just go on and on, and it seems that you can't get off

 

Oh, I know we've come a long way
We're changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

 

Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air
But will you keep on building higher
'Til there's no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?

 

 know we've come a long way
We're changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

 

Yusuf Islam

 

In today's Lion Lamb blog I write about the musical artist once known as Cat Stevens who will soon be releasing a reimagining of a highly successful album. Tea for the Tillerman which is now 50 years old  Stevens converted to Islam and changed his name to Yusuf. It was a fundamentalist form of the religion which led him to make incendiary comments, putting him on an international watch list, and  causing him to walk away from secular music for twenty years or more.



Tea for the Tillerman 2 includes all the original songs, rerecorded, including Where Do the Children Play? This song is accompanied by a stop-motion animated video which asks the question in a world which has obviously degraded by human greed and mindless industrialization. While it has been described as a disturbing post-apocalyptic vision it really is "apocalypse now" in too many places on our planet. After all, the title is Where Do the Children Play?, not Where Will the Children Play?

I'm glad Yusuf/Stevens is back and offering this timely message. Every major religion acknowledges God as Creator and there is a growing environmental movement in Islam, which I appreciate. To care for the Earth for this generation and those to come is true faithfulness.

There is a glimpse of hope at the end of the video and there always is when we respect the Creator and Creation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCJhNiKhFE