In the 1940s there was a popular ballad called I’ll Be Seeing You that went, ‘I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places that this heart of mine embraces…’ and so on for 32 saccharine bars. We are now in that I’ll be seeing you phase of our relationship with Saudi Arabia, looking into the rearview mirror as the frackers and the North Slope wave bye bye, and the Saudis return to the 7th century that the seven sisters rescued them from.
I’ll be seeing you
But not in those familiar places
Where we clung with warm embraces
Decades through
Because of all that North Slope oil
And unrelenting fracker toil
We’re free at last from OPEC’s coil
And so we say
It’s still okay
You’ll go back to sleep
And dream of when you made the rules
And underwrote madrassas schools
Now you’re through
In the shifting sands
You’ll wander ‘cross your barren lands
Back to you jingling caravans
And dogs that bark
Late after dark
Reminding you that oil was nice
You never worked, just set the price
But now the frackers roll the dice
And so goodbye to being you
It’s time and we’ll be seeing you