In America, we can be rude
When we're unsatisfied with our food.
  We'll become all aghast
  If our daily repast
Isn't quite the taste which we pursued.

Yet while we lead a life of gourmet,
People die of hunger far away.
  They don't have the salaries
  To buy sufficient calories,
And thousands of them starve per day.

One bad case today is North Korea
How to solve it, we have no idea.
  There just aren't enough
  Of the precious foodstuffs;
It's a problem with no panacea.

For five years they have suffered through drought
Adequate food they've long been without.
  The blight kills half their crop
  And the famine won't stop.
It would seem that they just can't win out.

A million tons of corn lost last year
Should cause all of us to lend an ear.
  And the same goes for rice,
  When the crop won't suffice
The supplies in Pyongyang disappear.

In such desperate situations,
People do anything to stretch rations.
  They'll dump grass into stew
  And sometimes tree bark too.
Need to survive knows no limitations.

The effect of this terrible condition
Is a large outbreak of malnutrition.
  Once real food is all gone
  They become sick and wan
Since no one can afford a physician.

A concerted effort has been made
To help bring them food with foreign aid.
  But the amount that we send
  Is too small to contend
With the hungry mouths that never fade.

And what's worse, there is no guarantee
That food goes where we want it to be.
  In Kim Jong II's reign,
  He sends his friends the grain
And leaves none for the poor refugee.

It would seem that the ruling elite
Decide who is entitled to eat.
  The rich, of course, can dine,
  Useful workers are fine,
But otherwise, no rice, corn, or wheat.

Many North Koreans have now fled
To China, hoping they will be fed.
  Some of them die en route,
  But it's still worth pursuit,
Because staying could leave them all dead.

The issues here must be addressed.
We'll await the upcoming harvest,
  And if it is as bad
  As the past five they've had,
Then it's time for more help from the West.