Side Effects

are just Nature's Way

of telling you something’s wrong!!

For those too you young to be familiar with it, those who don’t remember, or those who just can’t remember, this is a play on Spirit’s 1970 song “Nature’s Way”.

Please, listen to the song first. You’ll like it! Next, read the lyrics below it. Finally, read my commentary below that. No cheating!

Spirit - Nature's Way (1970)

It's nature's way of telling you something's wrong
It's nature's way of telling you in a song

It's nature's way of receiving you
It's nature's way of retrieving you
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong

It's nature's way of telling you, soon we'll freeze
It's nature's way of telling you, dying trees

It's nature's way of receiving you
It's nature's way of retrieving you
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong
It's nature's way, it's nature's way
It's nature's way, it's nature's way

It's nature's way of telling you
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong
It's nature's way of telling you
It's nature's way of telling you
In a song, oh-h

It's nature's way of receiving you
It's nature's way
It's nature's way of retrieving you
It's nature's way
It's nature's way of telling you
Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong

Writer/s: Randy California
Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/spirit/natures-way

Ok, confession: I’m old enough to have bought the original album this appeared on. But I didn’t. I got it a few years later on “The Best of Spirit” album. And I listen to it several times a year.

The first thing I want to mention is, in 1970, what in nature was out to get us:

“It's nature's way of telling you, soon we'll freeze
It's nature's way of telling you, dying trees”

For those who remember, in 1970, $cience was predicting a “Mini Ice-Age”. Soon. And most trees don’t survive that well in extremely cold climates.

Fast forward to today. No Mini Ice-Age occurred. Now there are so many trees that we have multiple, raging Forest fires every year and yet no apparent concern for running out of trees. And now we’re concerned about Global Warming. Go figure.

So I would like to propose that we change those two lines to something else that nature is telling us is wrong:

Side Effects. Specifically from Chemicals.

In our foods. In our Pharmaceutical Drugs. In our Environment.

Listen to yourself and your own body. If you have a symptom of ANY kind when you eat, drink, or come in contact with any man-made chemical, then avoid it like the plague it is.

Nature is telling you. Multiple times a day. Every day. Every year. Of your life.

That’s all I’ll say for now, but how about this for a more current up-to-date lyric?

“It's nature's way of telling you, it’s side effects
It's nature's way of telling you, creates Disease”