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East Palestine Ohio

by Conor Ryan Hennessy

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about

I happened to be reading White Noise by Don Delillo when the East Palestine train derailment happened. Felt a certain way about it, and wrote this song.

lyrics

In 1985 Don Delillo wrote a book called white noise
relating self worth to the value of the things that we
buy in order to forget about our ending
But all you really need to know for this song
is that in that book a train derails
and explodes like a bomb releasing toxic
gas and that used to be fiction

Chorus:
It ain't us
said the CEO of Norfolk Southern
ain't us either said the government
Musta been god, or luck that ain't so good
It ain't us
said the people of East Ohio
No one to blame and all the while
East Palestine's a poisoned neighborhood
(A preventable tragedy everyone understood)

In 2014 congress passed a bill
that required trains that could toxic spill
to have Electronic Pneumatic brakes that were shiny
Those old air brakes do fine with freight
But with toxic material cant make mistakes
six million dollars in donations that bill was gone

On February third, twenty twenty three
a freight train carrying vinyl chloride's speed
was too much for its 1970's bearings
Fifty cars derailed spilling their contents
Risking explosion, so Norfolk Southern
Started burning all that stuff and watched the smoke

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources
estimates the spill killed four thousand fish
poisoned children, killed pets and all the deer
The smoke kept growing in that giant column
We still don't know the extant of the problem
And somehow I'm not sure we ever will

Norfolk Southern's worth fifty billion
It issues shares to executives in millions
and buys back stock in billions to show they care
They fired half their workforce to Wallstreet's praise
Cause the Safety Oversight folks were overpaid
and its cheaper to poison children than to upgrade brakes

White noise ends with a beautiful sunset
enhanced by the chemicals the train erupted
It's beauty a distraction from our deaths
Norfolk Southern wants to play that game
The government looks like it wants the same
Without having to admit they made the mess

credits

released February 24, 2023

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Conor Ryan Hennessy image

Conor Ryan Hennessy Salem, Massachusetts

Songwriter. Salem, MA.

conorryanhennessy.com

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