Amoeba’s Lorica: Big Black Uber

I wrote Big Yellow Taxi on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart… this blight on paradise. – Joni Mitchell, Interview, 1996.

Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then. – Bob Seger, Against the Wind, 1980.

Taxi? You want a taxi?!? – Incredulous local, Honolulu International Airport, 2020

They paved paradise, and
Put up a parking lot,
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot.

(Chorus) Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?
They paved paradise, and
Put up a parking lot.

They took all the trees, and
Put ’em in a tree museum,
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half* just to see ’em.

(Chorus)

Hey, farmer, farmer,
Toss away your GMOs,
Your papayas don’t belong here,
They belong in Mexico.

(Chorus)

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam,
And a big black Uber
Took the last wise man on the lam.

(Chorus)

They paved paradise, and
Put up a parking lot.

(giggles)

With apologies to Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
Copyright © 1970, Crazy Crow Music

* US$1.50 in 1970 = $10.00 in 2020. As of 23 October 2020, Foster Botanical Garden charges $5 admission ($3 for kamaʻaina). So, in Honolulu, the cost of seeing trees hasn’t kept up with inflation. Probably the only thing that hasn’t …