Little Boxes (Ticky Tacky)


Written by: Malvina Reynolds
Artist: Pete Seeger
From the album: We Shall Overcome (Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall)
Originally released: 1963

Notes:
Malvina Reynolds was born in San Francisco August 23, 1900.
She was refused her diploma by Lowell High School because her
parents were opposed to US participation in World War I.
Little Boxes' was the most popular of Malvina Reynolds's many songs and
legend has it that Reynolds got the inspiration for 'Little Boxes' in 1961 while
driving to an engagement in Palo Alto. She looked up at a pastel-colored Daly City
hill-side and said to her husband:"Bud, take the wheel. I feel a song coming on."
A protest singer, Malvina Reynolds songs were recorded by
Joan Baez, Judy Collins, as well as Pete Seeger.

Pete Seeger remembers meeting Reynolds in 1947 when she spoke to him at a
hootenanny, saying: 'I'd like to try doing what you do, making up songs and
singing them." Sixteen years later Seeger performed 'Little Boxes' at his
Carnegie hall concert. The rest is folk music history.

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.

And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.