If you're out to get the honey, don't go killin' all the bees.
- Joe Strummer and the Mescalleros - Johnny Appleseed.
Many people believe this song has religious connotations, mainly because it was the title song from the painfully obvious metaphorical HBO television show, John From Cincinnati. These people would be wrong.
The song is taken from the album Global a Go-go, which features 11 tracks each showcasing the music typical of a particular geographic region. Johnny Appleseed is, obviously, the North American track. No major world religion is unique, or even founded in North Americas, so it is unlikely this song has anything to do with religion.
When considering that Joe Strummer, former frontman of The Clash and one of the true fathers of punk music, is the person who wrote these lyrics it becomes more likely a cultural or political message is implied within the song.
The Chorus repeatedly echoes "If you're out to get the honey, don't go killin' all the bees."
My interpretation, which I humbly posit is not a personal but a correct interpretation, is that the song is about the North American, more aptly the United States' historic process of rapidly using our natural resources. This could be explained on a deeper examination of our main chorus line
If you are "out to get the honey" or, in other words, reap benefit from nature, then you would do well not to go "killin' all the bees.", or extracting the maximum short term benefit (killing all the bees, allowing one to gather ALL the current honey) while poisoning the long term opportunities (no more bees, no more honey in the future).
This would reflect the current state of the land in the United States being largely deforested and industrialized, whereas as recently as the 19th century the majority of the land was still untamed nature, full of resources.
Johnny Appleseed, American folk lore icon known for walking the country planting apple trees, would further the motif of American natural resources. Considering this song as a condemnation of the industrialization and commercialization and general paving over of the so recently unspoiled and virgin continent of North America, please reread the opening and closing lines of the song:
Lord, there goes Johnny Appleseed
He might pass by in the hour of need
There's a lot of souls
Ain't drinking from no well locked in a factory
Hey - it's what the people are saying
It's what the people are saying
Hey - there ain't no berries on the trees
Hey - that's what the people are saying, no berries on the trees
You're checking out the honey, baby
You had to go killin' all the bees
The lyrics fit perfectly with this interpretation. You might say Joe Strummer was "going green" long before it was popular. But then you would be missing the point, because "going green" is a corporate slogan masquerading as giving a crap.
Can I be punk, and wear a collared shirt?