You remember being young with coloring books?
Wanting every grown up to look?
They didn't care about your artistic expression or even how much time it took
They just wanted to know... Hey! Way to go
I like how you stayed inside the lines
My crayon ranged all over they tried to say I was out of my mind
You gotta color inside those lines or else your picture will be sloppy
You need to learn to live inside of a world of orthodoxy
Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't talk back
Matter o fact, why don't you lay your head down on the mat and take a nap
Don't talk without raising your hand. Don't stand so close to me when you breathe
Don't touch hot stoves and GO BLOW YOUR NOSE! don't whipe that on your sleeve!
don't hit. Don't throw a fit. Don't ask why. Don't cry out loud.
Don't break that! Don't take that!
Don't daydream. You still seem to have your head up in the CLOUDS
Don't be all loud. And don't ever disrespect other people's property
And don't color outside the lines. you gotta color pictures properly.

Now as I began to sprout I figured out what that was all about
We don't shout shout let it all out, just be inactive when it doubt
Don't rock the boat or the vote. Don't miss work without a note
and if things get to tough to cope... give up hope
You have to have faith in this here system and just accept that it's all there is
The valuable things is just that which brings that cha-ching to big businesses
let it be understood that old growth woods don't take out ads in our publications
Amber waves of grain won't train to sustain our campaigns on misbehavin nations
That's why I can't stand these tree huggin types, like
picture two trees fixin to fight
where one been in the other's light and they been gettin drunk all night right
like, "Evergreen you bein mean synthesizin all that junk!
Throw your branches up I'm bout to knock your canopy off your trunk"
"Poplar please, put up your leaves, you always in my breeze
that's why your mom's a sleaze, opened her knees and got the Dutch Elm disease"
Yeah that would be real whack, but it's human beings that act like that
Like a tree is just paychecks for lumberjacks
If you divide the guilt into millionths you ain't gotta pay it no mind
You just gotta pick up that next crayon and color inside those lines

Don't forget, don't fret, don't let that stinkin doorknob hit you
Don't you agree that tree would probably look better as toilet tissue?
Don't you see I'm busy? Don't bother me with this today
Don't be in the loggers' way! Hey, don't you think air is overrated anyway?
Don't give me no egg-head Mr. Wizard's World about "carbon sequestration"
Don't you ever stop to consider that maybe deforestation is just a product
of your overactive imagination?
Don't always go blaming corporations for all of your so called "problems" with pollution
Don't be absurd and use dirty words. I heard somebody said Revolu... ooops.
How are you supposed to protect the planet?
Don't axe me man. I'on't know.
You'll figure sumpn out. Color inside the lines as you go

So now we're all like what the heck
I don't mean no disrespect
I'm just sayin it seems we ain't allowed to do nothin unless it won't have much effect
Jimmy Carter can't even tell peeps to turn down the heat and put on a sweater
And a thousand clever letters to the editor never made my air quality any better
I spoze I'm supposed to write to my congressman
he claimed to be an environmentalist when he ran
Oh except now he's on K street gettin somethin to eat with his lobbyist friend: the man.
and savin these precious trees ain't really a part of HIS plan
but that's fine, you just color inside those lines while you still can
So that's the end of my song, my ramblin, scramblin and carryin on
But, ah, Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone?