Mister Thompson calls the waiter, orders steak and baked potato

Then he leaves the bone and gristle and he never eats the skins

The busboy comes and takes it, with a cough contaminates it

And puts it in a can with coffee grinds and sardine tins

The truck comes by on Friday and carts it all away

And a thousand trucks just like it are converging on the Bay, oh

Garbage (garbage, garbage, garbage) Garbage!

We're filling up the sea with garbage (garbage...)

What will we do when there's no place left

To put all the garbage? (garbage...)

Mr. Thompson starts his Cadillac and winds it down the freeway track

Leaving friends and neighbors in a hydro-carbon haze

He's joined by lots of smaller cars all sending gases to the stars

There they form a seething cloud that hangs for thirty days

And the sun licks down into it with an ultraviolet tongue

Till it turns to smog and settles down and ends up in our lungs, oh

Garbage (garbage...) Garbage!

We're filling up the sky with garbage (garbage...)

What will we do

When there's nothing left to breathe but garbage (garbage...)

Getting home and taking off his shoes he settles down with the evening news

While the kids do homework with the TV in one ear

While Superman for the thousandth time sells talking dolls and conquers crime

Dutifully they learn the date of birth of Paul Revere

In the paper there's a piece about the mayor's middle name

And he gets it done in time to watch the all-star bingo game, oh

Garbage (garbage...)

We're filling up our minds with garbage

Garbage (garbage...)

What will we do when there's nothing left to read

And there's nothing left to need

And there's nothing left to watch

And there's nothing left to touch

And there's nothing left to walk upon

And there's nothing left to talk upon

Nothing left to see

And there's nothing left to be but

Garbage (garbage...)

In Mister Thompson's factory, they're making plastic Christmas trees

Complete with silver tinsel and a geodesic stand

The plastic's mixed in giant vats from some conglomeration

That's been piped from deep within the earth or strip-mined from the land

And if you question anything, they say, "Why, don't you see?

It's absolutely needed for the economy," oh

Oh, Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!

There stocks and their bonds - all garbage!

Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!

What will they do when their system goes to smash

There's no value to their cash

There's no money to be made

But there's a world to be repaid

Their kids will read in history books

About financiers and other crooks

And feudalism, and slavery

And nukes and all their knavery

To history's dustbin they're consigned

Along with many other kinds of garbage

Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!