God Was Here

One of my favorite singer/songwriters was my college pal Phil. He wrote songs that captured the angst and anguish of the late-teens / early-twenties, IMO (like Tears for Fears' The Hurting). He sounds somewhat like the lead singer of Crash Test Dummies (e.g., "God Shuffled His Feet"). 

For example, when we worked at the newspaper, we became good pals with another guy there, Jeff. Over time, Jeff stopped eating meat, and then eggs and dairy. Then after the break between winter and spring quarter, he, like the vast majority of people who go vegan, went back to eating meat. Phil wrote a fantastic song, "For J," that captured the hurt and anger this caused in us.

But the catchiest song for me is "God Was Here" (as far as I know, none of Phil's songs are available online), which I can still recite from memory ~35 years later:

God was here
The story goes
And built the universe
He made us in his image
And he put us here on Earth
He disappeared for many years
And maybe he grew bored
So he returned so he could learn
How people had performed

He then came down as one of us
To see what it was like
Showed off a couple miracles
And acted really nice
He told us that he loved us
To the depths of eternity
And we've been sitting by the phone
For 20 centuries

A betting man would tell me 
That I still have 40 years
Sometimes I think that's not enough
And I lie awake in fear
Other times I think
Oh god, not 40 years of this
And contemplate a universe
I accidentally missed

And people say
"Quit bitching
This is the United States"
Well maybe so 
But I don't know
Why that should give me faith
In anything but suffering
Not so bad as the worst
And people grabbing all they can
Because they got here first 

The big fish eats the middle fish
Who eats the little fish
And here alone I'll break a bone
And make a little wish
Upon a star that shines so far away
In outer space
That if I try then I can fly
Off to a better place
Where the big fish likes the middle fish
Who likes the little fish
And you won't say I'm crazy just for thinking things like this
And I can sleep the night in peace
Without the dread and fear
Of never waking up again
Or waking up still here