I started writing “We Only Had a Few Good Years” in July 2024, and completed it a half year later. Three months after starting the lyrics, I came across Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker piece, and incorporated some quotations from the article into the song’s “long digression” — a rather unusual bridge between the second and third verses that I always thought of as being the pop-song equivalent of Melville’s Moby Dick (which also famously contains some rather incongruous digressions).
We Only Had a Few Good Years
Words and music © Jonathan Ochshorn 2025
1. Much has happened to us Hominins since we’ve been around
We started in the trees and now we’re on the ground
But with the water rising we’re more likely to be drowned
As we watch while the coastline disappears
Looks like we blew it cause we only had a few good years
2. Everyone wants a scapegoat — someone they can blame
But time is running out in this idiotic game
They’ll tell you they can fix it as they stand up and explain
All the while throwing sand in the gears
We definitely screwed it up big time cause we only had a few good years
BRIDGE:
To avoid misunderstanding I provide this long digression
My point is — we’ve always lived with constant warfare and aggression
So when I say we’ve had a few good years I’m just talking ’bout the weather
We’ve had 12,000 years in the Holocene to get our act together (let me explain)
Hominins emerged in a long ice age, the Quaternary Glaciation
Within which was an interglacial period called the the Holocene formation
When global temperatures began to warm and glacial ice receded
Giving human civilization the conditions that it needed
But instead of production based on science and cooperation we build fences at our border
Eat or be eaten, beat or be beaten — nothing’s changed in this new world order
The Holocene gave us opportunities we’ve consistently been squandering
All those wasted years, blood sweat and tears — that’s the subject I’ve been pondering
Now Elizabeth Kolbert* wrote in the New Yorker that it really is no mystery
Why (and I quote) “this is the period that includes all of recorded history
A coincidence that, presumably, is no coincidence,” she writes, since in that span (and I quote again)
“Temperatures settled down and a time of relative climate tranquillity began.” (end quote)
Instrumental verse
3. Our economists adore property and competition
And so we live with war, poverty, and superstition
Always under threat from more bombs and ammunition
Designed by our brightest engineers
People we blew it cause we only had a few good years3.
Outro
Production notes:
Music arranged and produced by Jonathan Ochshorn
Recorded with Logic Pro X software
Vocals: Jonathan Ochshorn
Background vocals: Jonathan Ochshorn
Real instruments: Jonathan Ochshorn’s leg-slapping intro drums
Software instruments played live on midi keyboard: Jonathan Ochshorn (drums, bass, piano, organ, electric clav)
Recorded at home in Ithaca, NY, February 2025.
I made the video using Final Cut Pro, with my lip-synced simulations recorded on my iPhone, placed on a tripod in front of my portable green screen (except that the final “outro” video was recorded live; hence the headphones and mic). The underlying video background is a live screen-recording of the Logic Pro X interface (with the Logic Pro transcription of the electric clav solo superimposed).
Links to all my songs and music videos can be found here.
* Elizabeth Kolbert, “Letter from Greenland: When the Arctic Melts, What the fate of Greenland means for the rest of the Earth,” New Yorker, October 7, 2024.