Trees Come out of the Air

The substance of the tree is carbon, where did that come from?
It comes from the air
It's carbon dioxide from the air
People look at trees and they think it comes out of the ground
That plants grow out of the ground
But if you ask, where the substance comes from?
You find out, where did it come from?
Trees come out of the air?
They surely come out of the ground
No, they come out of the air
No, they come out of the air
The carbon dioxide in the air goes into the tree and it changes it
Kicking out the oxygen
And then pushing the oxygen away from the carbon
And leaving the carbon substance with water
Water comes out of the ground
Only it came out of the air, didn't it?
Came down from the sky
So most of it, almost all of the tree is out of the ground
I'm sorry, it's out of the air!
Now
Of course I told you the oxygen and carbon stick together very tight
How is it that the tree is so smart to manage
To take the carbon dioxide
Which is the carbon oxygen nicely combined and undo that so easy?
Ah, life. Life has some mysterious quirks
No, the sun is shining
And it's the sunlight that comes down
And locks this oxygen away from the carbon
So it takes sunlight to get the plant to work
And so the sun, all the time
Is doing the work of separating the oxygen away from the carbon
The oxygen is some kind of terrible byproduct
Which it spits back into the air
And leaving the carbon and water and stuff
To make the substance of the tree
And then when we take the substance in the tree
And stick it in the fireplace
It is the only oxygen made by these trees
And all the carbon would much prefer to be close together again
And once you've let the heat to get it started
It continues and makes an awful lot of activity
While it's going back together again
And all this nice light and everything comes out
And everything is being undone
You're going back to carbon and oxygen, back to carbon dioxide
And the light and the heat that's coming out
That's the light and heat of the sun that went in
The sun that went in

So it's sort of stored sun that's coming out when you burn a log
So it's sort of stored sun that's coming out when you burn a log

So it's sort of stored sun that's coming out
When you burn a log
So it's sort of stored sun that's coming out
When you burn a log
So it's sort of stored sun that's coming out
When you burn a log
So it's sort of stored sun that's coming out
When you burn a log