California Shake - Margo Guryan

Melon-rising California sun

Drifting in a day not yet begun

Six o’clock and peaceful and serene

Floating in a Technicolor scene

Something nearly peaceful in the sound

Rising from the San Andreas ground

Overground, it starts to feel strange

Underground, it starts to rearrange

You’d better get up And run for a doorway

No time for thinking

Your life is at stake

Everyone’s doing the California Shake

California Shake

Non believing, everybody waits

Shifting on the continental plates

Thunder far below the ocean floor

Damned impartial sub-terrestrial war

Wond’ring if you’re going to survive

God, it feels like eight point four or five

Fifteen seconds holding your breath

Living through a microscopic death

You’d better hold on The worst isn’t over

No time for thinking

Your life is at stake

Everyone’s doing the California Shake

California Shake