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The Future ain’t what it used to be
©2003 S. McGaughey
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?