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Stuff

Lyrics ©2008 by Bill and Gretchen Roper
Music ©2008 by Bill Roper


Inspiration can be easy to find. Sometimes, you just have to look around you...

A        G      F
Stuff!
        E7          A        G        F
We have surely got enough.
               E7          A      G      F
That box could vanish in a puff
             E7                  A       G      F     E7
And we would still have too much stuff.
    D
You know this thing is dandy
   C
Or just might come in handy.
     D                             E7
I'll thank you not to give me that guff!
                 A      G     F    E7   A  G  F  E7
There's too much stuff.

     A                G           D                E7
This closet's full of boxes, that closet's full of clothes
     A                 G            D             E7
That might fit someone someday, but when God only knows.
    F                              G
The cars are in the driveway – the garage has overflowed.
    E7                            A
The shelving in the pantry has collapsed beneath the load.
    F                                     G
The cupboard's full of board games and of statements from the bank
    D                                          E7
The counter's full of canned goods and there's just one thing to thank.

You're always buying movies we've never time to play.
Drop papers on the table and that's where they will stay.
Now here's a box of badges from the cons that you've been at,
Three broken VCRs and one old obsolete ADAT.
Things keep accumulating despite my dirty looks
Like those eighty-seven boxes of once-read comic books.

It's creeping from the closet, it's crawling cross the floor – 
The fabric that you bought sometime in 1984.
I fear that I might die in a stuffed animal attack
Or crushed beneath the boxes on a shelf of bric-a-brac.
On every surface in the house, things seem to multiply.
I shovel patterns off the desk and sound the battle cry.

    D               A              G               A
Our stuff has taken over – there's no room left to live.
      D              A                 G                 A
Let's make a pile of stuff to keep and stuff that we can give.
    D                 E7             A                D
But that's a gift you gave to me and this thing is so dear
    D                  A                  G                   E7
And soon the pile that was to leave's the pile that's staying here.

Our stuff has won the battle – it's filling every room
And though we thought it bad before, we're facing certain doom.
Babies have so many things and toddlers even more.
It seems that every toy they have is scattered on the floor.
Computer chips within them taught them how to sing and dance.
We'd like to save our sanity but we don't have a chance.