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1. |
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2. |
Amniotic Sac
03:50
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Everything that I had
And everything I was to become
Was contained in the DNA in a sperm from my dad
And an egg from my mum.
For ten weeks that sperm
Had been waiting its turn
Now its moment was here,
And the goal was so near.
The egg was a lot older than you might assume.
It had been around
Since my mum was inside my grandma’s womb.
The other sperms gave chase
In the fallopian race,
But my sperm won first place.
The egg and sperm fused
And the resulting zygote cruised
Through the fallopian tubes
For a couple of days.
The cells inside it divided
Till at last this ball collided
With the wall of the uterus around day five.
I was barely alive
And already I’d had quite an eggciting ride.
My cells were by now fated
To be differentiated,
Destined to become my blood, kidneys & nerves.
And I was so happy when,
At around day ten,
I grew a new outer shell with super-sleek curves:
I was all right Jack,
I was shacked up in my AMNIOTIC SAC!
Life has begun
But it’s still nine months before I’ll see the sun,
And anyway, I don’t even have any eyes yet.
I am the bun
In the oven of fun
Well, it’d be fun if I had a brain big enough to analyse it.
I don’t yet have a sign of the zodiac.
Not while I’m shacked up in my AMNIOTIC SAC.
At 22 days my heart starts to beat,
A sound that’ll spend the rest of my life on repeat.
From five weeks I have an umbilical cord
Through which all the goodness I need can be poured.
At around the same time, my limbs start to grow,
And the cleft between my brain hemispheres starts to show.
My Y-chromosome’s SRY gene has just made me a male.
I’m now ten weeks old. Look! My first fingernail!
I cannot write a treatise,
For I am still a foetus.
No rent is due
For my womb with a view.
I can afford to be slack
Shacked up in my AMNIOTIC SAC
What manner of place is the world
Into which I would soon be hurled?
Such questions can wait
For now, life is pretty great.
There is nothing that I lack
While I’m shacked up in my AMNIOTIC SAC!
Please don’t tell me this is some sort of flashback.
Take me back to my AMNIOTIC SAC!
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3. |
Birth
01:32
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Birth
What’s it worth?
It’s hardly laugh-a-minute mirth.
Trying to fit my girth
Through your bum, mum.
Birth
Take the strain,
And laughing gas to allay the pain,
As I squeeze my massive brain
Through your bum, mum.
What do you mean, that’s not your bum?
I might be young, but I’m not that dumb!
Oh! There’s a hole between the holes
through which you poo and through which you pee
Out of which pops me!
Isn’t it a pity
Birth’s not more pretty
And that that there hole is so itty bitty?
But isn’t it rad
That this little lad
Will finally get to hang out with his mum and dad?
But isn’t it crazy
That of all species we may be
The only ones who need medical help to have a baby?
But isn’t it brill
That with modern midwives’ skill
In this day and age birth is less likely to kill?
But isn’t it a shame
We don’t all suffer the same
And the one who takes the brunt of the pain is the dame?
But isn’t it grand
That help is at hand
For my mum who gets an oxytocin hit from her pituitary gland?
Birth
It’s the first
Chance I get to see the Earth,
But it’s unfortunate
The first sight I get
Is of your bum, mum.
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4. |
Childhood
02:18
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Speak when you’re spoken to!
Do as the adults do!
Tidy up after yourself!
Put your things on the shelf!
Don’t throw food!
Don’t be rude!
No, don’t play outside nude!
It’s important you learn
To wait your turn
It’s not eated, it’s eaten!
Stay seated! One peep
And you’ll sow what you reap…
Let me play! Let me play!
Please don’t waste my childhood away!
Let me play! Let me play!
This is my heyday.
Give me clay, give me a sleigh,
I pray for a soft play birthday
Delay my maturation day
Please let me play.
Let me explore ideas,
Confront my hopes, dreams, fears,
At least for a few more years
Before I pursue careers.
I can see your reluctance,
But if you want my tuppence,
Let me press some buttons,
Just to see what happens,
Don’t school me
Can’t fool me
Society won’t rule me.
Don’t bother me
With authority
At least not until I’ve reached the age of majority.
I’m not a mini-adult
To be saddled
With a settled role
Not yet
Behind my ears I am still wet
Let me go wild -
I am a child,
Not reconciled
To the responsibility
I’ll shoulder in post-puberty.
Let me play! Let me play!
Why is it you who I should obey?
Look at the state of the world today:
You made it that way!
Now get out of my way
And let me play.
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5. |
Division of Labour
02:15
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Division of labour
Is a human behaviour,
The great separator
Between tinker and tailor,
The slave and the slaver,
The soldier, the sailor,
Life-taker, life-saver,
Curator, engraver,
The waiter, the baker,
Sign-maker, art faker,
Stock-trader, muck-raker
Or cake decorator.
Job job got a job
Have you got a job job job?
Do you earn a bob bob
To put food in your gob?
Way back at the inception
Of civilisation,
People formed a conception
That specialisation
Would improve mankind’s mission
For global domination,
And the lower professions
Would know their station.
It benefits the rich,
Who just get richer.
For the rest it is a stitch-
Up, a ceaseless stricture.
It created the class-system,
Caste-system, vast schisms.
It feels like part and parcel of our essence
But it isn’t.
At heart, we’re hunter-gatherers,
Those are our parameters;
It’s not in our characters
To let managers manage us.
Job job got a job
Have you got a job job job?
Do you earn a bob bob
To put food in your gob?
I mean, we probs had jobs,
Assigned by age or gender,
But a life of making door knobs
Was not on the agenda.
Division of labour
Is not our saviour.
I will not be defined
By the trade I have on paper.
Of course it’s true that if we had no labour division
There’s zero chance that I’d be a professional musician.
It’s thanks to others doing jobs that don’t really appeal
That I don’t have to sharpen spears and hunt my next meal.
But let’s have the gumption
To challenge the assumption
That a job’s a job for life
Cos that’s not how humans function.
For some, life is luxury.
For others, it’s a drudgery.
We won’t get equality
While some jobs are compulsory.
Don’t be told by some old fuddy-duddy:
Study whatever you want to study.
Job job got a job
Have you got a job job job?
Do you earn a bob bob
To put food in your gob?
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6. |
Empathy
01:19
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Empathy:
Not only do you understand me.
Additionally,
You can feel how it feels to be me.
If you reflect me sentimentally,
Then that is essentially
Empathy.
Technically,
That is your mirror system firing,
Electrically
Linking our thinking through its wiring.
If you strip humans of their empathy,
There’s not much humanity
Left to see.
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7. |
Grey Matter
02:08
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Isn’t it a funny thing,
The brain?
It’s the only thing that keeps
Me sane.
The neurons scattered
Across my grey matter
Process all the data
I encounter as I saunter.
I was born to think,
And thinking is the link
Twixt taking in impressions
And making decisions.
Natural selection
Made grey matter better
At attempting to
Decipher all the chatter,
And the smells and sights
And pick out the highlights
That might give me insights
That help me figure out how I can put the world to rights.
Mine’s a fine brain,
And so is yo-ho-hoors.
It’s bigger than
A dinosaur-hau-haurs.
But like every brain
Our brain’s trained to maintain
The body’s vital systems.
If they broke you’d miss them.
And, or so we’re told,
In these cerebral folds
You’ll find, amongst the mess,
The seat of consciousness.
Natural selection
Has no set direction
But in our case it has
Added on a section
Called the neocortex
Where our complex thought gets
Made, weighed and conveyed
So unmistakeably primate behaviour is displayed
Mine’s an ape brain,
Cos I’m an a-ha-hape,
Which accounts for
My apey sha-ha-hape.
It evolved to solve
The problems that involved
Subsisting in a social
System that revolved
Around the shifting
Seasonal demands
Of hunting, fishing, sprinting,
Picking and preparing plants.
Natural selection
Is now playing catch-up
With this messed-up modern
World that we have dished up.
Maybe that’s why some
World leaders seem so dumb
When they like us are blessed
With what are thought the best
Brains in the animal kingdom.
Isn’t it a funny thing, the brain?
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8. |
Imagination
02:50
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Try
To hold an image in your mind’s eye
Of a fly
On a bicycle
Wearing a tie
Eating pie.
Did you manage
With my little challenge?
Did that image appear
Even though that fly’s not here?
That’s a simple illustration
Of imagination.
Can you imagine a world without imagination?
A colourless world of creative stagnation.
Without that mutation
We’d have no inspiration
Ideas in isolation
Societal fragmentation
We’d be rubbish at adaptation
And all of my rhymes would incline to the same termination.
What a vile postulation.
With no immediate sense input
I can conjure up a world in which my foot
Is King of all the Feetkind
But it’s not real – it’s only in my mind.
Can you imagine a world without imagination?
A colourless world of creative stagnation.
There’d be no education
No improvisation
No interpretation
Of our observation
We’d be slaves to temptation
And all of my shows would be strictly arranged by alphabetisation
What a vile postulation.
If it’s any consolation
We have a proliferation
Of imagination.
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9. |
Kin
02:39
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If you mess with me,
I’ll take it on the chin,
But don’t even think
Of messing with my kin.
They’re my nearest and dearest,
Where I end and begin,
Cos family to me
Are everything.
I got the best mum and dad
A boy has ever had,
And my sisters score best
Regardless of the test.
And now I’m fully grown
I’ve made a family of my own,
And science has shown
That without a doubt, they’re the best family the world has ever known.
Blood runs from relation to relation
From generation to generation
Blood is the thickest social connection
And I think I know why! It’s cos of kin selection.
If you give your life to keep your family alive
Then your DNA still has a chance to survive
Which may explain sterility in worker bees,
And lots of weird things about our own species
Like, why exactly do we need grandparents?
What explains gayness? Why do we give Christmas presents?
Niceness is priceless for our family,
For our tribe, for our hive, be we human or bee.
If you mess with me,
I’ll take it on the chin,
But don’t even think
Of messing with my kin.
They’re my nearest and dearest,
Where I end and begin,
Cos family to me
Are everything.
We also have a family
Of a different sort.
Family can be
Our network of support,
The circle of friends
Upon whom one depends,
Our motley crew, our posse who
Will go to the ends
Of the earth for you
Even if they haven’t literally given birth to you.
If you mess with me,
I’ll take it on the chin,
But don’t even think
Of messing with my kin.
They’re my nearest and dearest,
Where I end and begin,
Cos family to me
Are everything.
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10. |
Language
02:06
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Before the Tower of Babel
Was reduced to rubble
Each thing had one label
But then there was trouble.
The languages split;
We couldn’t understand each other.
Your sister missed your gist
And you couldn’t figure a fig of what bothered your brother.
Well, at least that’s the mythical version
Of language dispersion
But the truth is that tongues undergo slow conversion
As slang becomes normalised
Dialectic quirks formalised
Our vocabulary is not stationary.
It drifts and shifts practically before our eyes.
Well, before our ears. For language spoken
Is not language written.
The writing’s a token
A means of committing
The speaking to paper
Or to cave walls with a scraper
And it came a lot later.
Spoken language made us, while we’re the written word’s creator.
The way I make sound waves is written in my genotype.
My lungs squeeze a steady breeze through my windpipe.
My vocal folds flutter like a flag on a ship
To make fluctuations over which I let my tongue trip.
Every facet of my vocal tract’s exquisitely formed
To ensure of my thoughts you’re informed.
Consonants collide
As sibilances slide
Giving meaning to my screaming
And clout to my shout
Giving weight to what I state
And a name to what I proclaim
Language is what unites us
It’s not what divides us
It lets out the thoughts that otherwise would stay locked up inside us.
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11. |
Money or Music
02:56
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What am I?
What am I?
I’m a cultural phenomenon
Many thousands of years old.
It takes skill to make me
And I can be bought and sold.
I can make you feel good
But I can also make you sad,
And when you’ve got none of me,
That’s definitely bad.
What am I?
Am I money?
Or am I music?
It’s so very confusic.
What should I do?
What should I do?
Should I be making a mint
At a desk in the city?
Or should I stay skint
And compose my next ditty?
I have two daughters.
Should I support us
By slaving away
At a job every day?
Is it more important
To have an assortment
Of musical instruments
Cluttering my house
Or to be able
To put food on the table
Like a good, stable
And diligent spouse?
What should I do?
Should I money?
Or should I music?
It’s so very confusic.
What do we
Want to be?
From cave-dwellers jamming with a mammoth-tusk flute
To stock market traders wearing suits in pursuit
Of a quick buck we’ve come far,
But how do we feel about where we are?
If you squint you would mistake us
For die-hard money makers
But money didn’t make us
It just helps us to trade.
If you strain your ears to listen
You’ll discern our primal mission:
To be through-and-through musicians.
But I’m afraid we’ve strayed.
If we valued musical notes over banknotes
If we traded in sounds not pounds
If we based ou r retail on the musical scale
There’d be a lot more musicians around.
What do we
Want to be?
Do we want to be money?
Do we want to be music?
It’s so very confusic.
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12. |
Nature v Nurture
01:29
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Nature versus nurture, round 1.
First out of the gate, let me set the record straight:
I believe I was born as a blank slate,
Susceptible to influence, suggestible, impressionable.
I’m not made by fate: I am a being I create.
Yo check this out, before you stands a prime example
Of a creature of nature, and I’ll give you ample
Reasons to doubt this nurture-worship that he spouts.
Over all his logic to the contrary I’ll trample.
Nature versus nurture, round 2.
How on Earth can everything about who I am
Be decided before I’ve set foot in a pram?
I can blatantly choose to be anything I want to be.
My gene set is not a computer programme.
You’re a sham.
Am I really? Do you think you see it clearly?
Do you think you have an ounce of free will? No, not nearly.
Genes affect your height, weight, gait, shape, sight,
Likes, dislikes, insides, outsides, the whole caboodle. Yours sincerely.
Nature versus nurture, final round.
Okay, I’ll give you height, but I won’t give you weight.
How much I weigh depends on how much I ate,
And since I choose with my nut what I put in my gut,
Your faith in determinism really starts to grate.
But your appetite depends on ingrained instincts.
Genes will also regulate the way a person thinks.
DNA also works upon character quirks.
Your obsolete insistence upon nurturism really stinks.
Who wins? Which song’s next? You decide!
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13. |
Pets
03:24
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Let’s look after our pets.
They’re as friendly as a best friend gets.
And let’s look after our domesticated livestock, too.
They’re thinking, breathing, needy, feeling sentient creatures
Just like me and you.
When we first started hanging with the wolves in the wild
They were not a good present to be given to a child
But we still thought these frequent fireside visitors
Ought to be for life, not just for Christmas.
It suited us, and it suited them,
At least for a while, ‘til we chose to condemn
Them to many generations of strict servitude
In return for shelter and the odd scrap of food.
So we set about selecting mates
For individuals with attractive traits
And / after many generations playing this game,
We found ourselves living with a wolf that was tame.
And we did the same with other species / again and again.
Let’s look after our pets.
They’re as friendly as a best friend gets.
And let’s look after our domesticated livestock, too.
They’re thinking, breathing, needy, feeling sentient creatures
Just like me and you.
The following verse lists almost all the
Animals we’ve chosen to tame in the cage,
And it does so in chronological order
According to a Wikipedia page
The first pet that I ever got was a dog.
Then three thousand years later, a goat, then a hog.
Then a sheep and a cow, then I ended up pickin’
Up a pet zebu and a cat and a chicken,
Then I got myself a guinea pig and a donkey
Then a duck, water buffalo, and a honeybee,
Dromedary, horse, silk moth, pigeon, goose,
Then I had a yak, camel and a llama running loose,
Then I got myself a ferret, and a dove and a turkey,
Goldfish, rabbit, then a koi and a canary,
Finch, mouse, fighting fish, rat and a mink
And most recently I got a pet fox and a skunk.
Let’s look after our pets.
Let’s not just leave it to the vets.
We share their planet so let’s kick the habit of supremacy.
They’re thinking, breathing, needy, feeling sentient creatures
Just like you and me.
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14. |
Quadriceps
01:50
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Knees bent,
Legs stretched,
Run run run.
You put your whole self in
To this walking thing.
Your feet step
Your head nods
Your two arms swing.
But the parts that are most crucial as you take your steps
Are the muscles called the quadriceps.
Oh! Quadriceps femoris!
Sing along this is the chorus!
Oh! Quadriceps femoris!
Knees bent,
Legs stretched,
Run run run.
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,
Walking uses all of those, all of those,
But what swings legs from one step to the next?
Blatantly the quadriceps, quadriceps.
(vox pops)
Oh! Quadriceps femoris!
Sing! This is the final chorus!
Oh! Quadriceps femoris!
Knees bent,
Legs stretched,
Run run run.
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15. |
Tools & Technology
03:16
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As far as toolkits go, there is no older one
Than the stone age toolkit called the Oldowan.
The stone age is split into the Paleolithic,
The Mesolithic and the Neolithic,
And the stuff that they came up with was utterly terrific.
Knock knock knock with a fist-sized rock.
Scrape scrape scrape with a sharp flint flake.
Whack whack whack with a rough hand axe
Boom boom boom, it’s the world’s first spoon.
Tool, tool, tool me up.
I’m fashioning a tool and I just can’t stop.
From the first sharpened stick to the conquest of space
Tools are a trait of the human race.
Then came the time when we started to engage
With the smelting of metal alloys. It was all the rage.
First came the Bronze Age and then the Iron Age.
Oh how exciting! It’s the first recorded writing!
I just can’t cope! We’ve now got soap!
Woah man, for real! It’s the first spoked wheel!
It’s harder to harm a soldier in armour!
Then, with our own age getting nearer and nearer,
Comes the start of the historical era
When the dating of inventions is a lot lot clearer,
Wow, that’s ace!
It’s the spiral staircase!
Wow, that’s brill!
It’s the first windmill!
Yes yes yes!
It’s the printing press!
There’s still hope!
It’s the telescope!
This must be a dream!
Things are running off steam!
Tool, tool, tool me up.
I’m fashioning a tool and I just can’t stop.
From the first sharpened stick to the conquest of space
Tools are a trait of the human race.
The invention of electricity was a magical
Turning-point in making the world more practical.
This is the era electromechanical.
Night time’s solved! It’s the first light bulb!
This is fantastic! We’re making stuff with plastic!
Woah, what a trip! It’s the world’s first zip!
This is blowing my brain! It’s the first aeroplane!
Now mankind is really on a roll
And the speed of progress is taken to a whole
New level. Things are spiralling out of control!
Personal computers! Chemotherapy for tumours!
Manned space flight! The LED light!
Infrared lasers! Rechargeable razors!
Mp3s! DVDs!
The International Space Station!
CRISPR Cas-9 gene manipulation!
A vaccine against COVID-19!
What are the next
Technological steps?
A telescope that sees even further galaxies?
Will we integrate technology into our biology?
Will we live in space?
Have the power to erase
Humanity at the press of a key?
What new toolkits do we want to see?
Tool, tool, tool me up.
I’m fashioning a tool and I just can’t stop.
Without apology, I think technology is ace,
For I am a member of the human race.
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16. |
Us & the Universe
03:16
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Of all of the creatures who’ve lived on this Earth
The ones we call humans seem to be the first
To ponder their place in the Universe.
Twinkle twinkle, little star,
How we used to wonder what you are.
Were you fixed to a heavenly plane?
Could you help us predict the rain?
Did you chart our past and future?
Could you help us find our suitor?
Twinkle twinkle little star,
Now we know much better what you are.
Twinkle twinkle little planet,
Oh how we endeavoured to understand it.
Was your shine divine and godly?
Were you a star that twinkled oddly?
Why did Mars sometimes reverse its direction?
What happened to celestial perfection?
Twinkle twinkle big round Sun,
How a total solar eclipse would stun.
What did this baffling occurrence portend?
Was the world soon about to end?
Was the Sun being eaten by a beast?
Did it represent a warning, at least?
We now know stars
Are all suns much like ours,
And a planet is a sphere
Like this Earth we’ve got here,
And total eclipses
Happen when ellipses
Lunar and solar
Fleetingly cross over.
As for the strange path of Mars, it’s explained by the fact that the Earth’s not the centre of our Solar System.
Those old superstitions have been superseded as peer reviewed science has lately replaced received wisdom.
But so many questions remain.
There is still so much left to explain.
Twinkle twinkle distant sun,
By alien lifeforms are you overrun?
Why is space missing so much of its matter, and
What explains the mountain chains on the moons of Saturn?
At the end, will it just disappear?
Why is the Universe here?
Twinkle twinkle distant glow
The simple fact is that we do not know.
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17. |
War
02:53
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At any one moment, in 40-odd conflict zones you can hear the war-cry,
And up to 9 out of each 10 individuals who in all those wars will die
Is not a fighter at all, but a civilian.
And the number of people who, on account of those wars, has been displaced,
Who’ve had to leave their homes, their friends, their jobs and their families in haste,
Currently stands at about 70 million.
Warfare is not going anywhere.
What an appalling affair.
War -
What’s it for?
All this gore
Is a bore.
I abhor
War
And I can’t take any more.
So why do we war?
Why do we seem to adore
Being obscenely mean
And causing grief galore?
Is it in our DNA, from days of fight-or-flight?
Is it ‘cause our moral compass tells us might is right?
Is it ‘cause it helps to loosen purse strings that are tight?
Or strengthens groups who have a common rival to indict?
Or just because we have an ingrained blood-fest appetite?
There are a lot of theories, but the evidence is slight.
Dehumanise your enemies.
Make war from far so you can’t see their eyes.
Don’t empathise. Fuel enmities
By bombing them with drones from way up high.
War -
What’s it for?
All this gore
Is a bore.
I abhor
War
And I can’t take any more.
So why do we war?
Can we ever restore
Law and order
To every border,
Front and shore?
There’s the UN and the EU – two attempts to do just that,
But even they will not stop every gung-ho autocrat,
Who, however much we try, will still act like a snotty brat.
There’ll always be eye for eye and tooth for tooth and tit for tat
So we’ll just have to limit all the upshots of their spat
We’re a species that just seems to love combat.
War –
What’s it for?
Just what are we, at our core?
I abhor
War
And I can’t take any more.
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18. |
XX/XY
03:12
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In each of my cells, I have 46
Little chromosomes, like short stubby sticks
Made of DNA in a double helix.
From my dad and from my mum I got an equal mix.
Y, X, why-oh-why
Each chromosome looks like little crosshairs.
Numbered longest to shortest, there are 22 pairs
Which every living human shares,
But then there are these two funny little spares.
Y, X, why-oh-why
These strands determine biological sex.
If you were born a girl, you’ve an X and an X.
Mine are X and Y, which means society expects
Me to like the colour blue and have an Oedipus complex.
Y, X, why-oh-why
But the surprising fact is, however hard you try,
You can’t find maleness on chromosome Y.
It’s simply a switch, so if you were to apply
Some hormones, you can kiss your birth gender goodbye.
Y, X, well Y not?
Another interesting fact, though a subject of debate,
Is that femaleness is the default state.
We were all girls when we started to gestate,
As our ancestors were, before they evolved a mate.
Y, X, why-oh-why
It’s not black and white - female and male
Are merely the extremes on a sliding scale.
But we live in a culture where we’re encouraged to curtail
Our traits from the gender from which we don’t hail.
Y, X, why-oh-why
Why do we discriminate on the basis of sex?
There’s no reason lorry drivers should have hairier legs.
There’s no reason women should be earning less than us men.
We’ve set our sights on the dizzy heights of equal right but kindly tell me when.
Y! When! Y! When! Y! When! Y! X! Why-oh-why.
|
||||
19. |
You
02:14
|
|||
|
You
are a miracle,
the pinnacle
of four billion years of natural selection.
The arrow of time has pointed in your direction.
You are a star,
I mean it literally, that is literally what you are.
Every atom in your body was once in a star.
You've come so far.
You
gestated in the beautif’lest
Human being’s uterus,
With kickings and hiccupings and Braxton Hicks contractions.
At birth you had a brain with 50 trillion neural connections,
Which three months down the line
will have multiplied by twenty times.
You have superpowers.
You're a survivalist - every climate is yours for the conquering.
You take life as it comes.
You're also good at conjuring
Up useful artefacts
With your opposable thumbs
That look just like your mum's.
You have two eyes and two lungs
and two kidneys and a healthy heart that's busy pounding.
You're two thirds oxygen, one fifth carbon,
one tenth hydrogen and 100% astounding.
(Sneeze)
Bless you!
Bless you!
Bless you!
|
||||
20. |
Zoological
03:49
|
|||
|
Since we first appeared on this watery planet,
We’ve thought of ourselves somehow chosen and blessed.
We looked at the world and assumed that we ran it,
But wouldn’t a touch of humility be best?
Let’s think zoological
Act zoological
Link the biological
Facts. It’s not illogical
To think mythological,
Behave anthropological,
But at the end of it all
We are not the prodigal
Sons. There is no planet B
So how hard can it be
To avert calamity
For all of humanity?
We need some amity
For our animal family.
Anthropocentricity
Is the gravest calumny.
We are related to the birds
We’re related to the bees
We’re related to the bugs
We’re related to the trees
We’re related to bacteria
And to the manatees
And our closest relations are the chimpanzees.
So let’s think zoological
Act zoological
Make a zoological
Pact with zoological
Earth that we’ll take care of it
Repair the wear and tear of it
Not just say a prayer for it
But promise we’ll be there for it
Think zoological
Tame our technological
Traits. It’s not impossible
If we give a t*ss. It’ll
Take more than symbolic acts
If we are to see impacts
But facing up to the facts
Is a skill our species lacks.
We are related to the birds
We’re related to the bees
We’re related to the bugs
We’re related to the trees
We’re related to bacteria
And to the manatees
And our closest relations are the chimpanzees.
The facts, no matter how you twist ‘em
Show us that the Earth’s a synergistic system,
Each bit reliant on all the other bits,
An eight-million piece jigsaw into which our species fits.
Much more snuggly than our fellow man admits
If you judge by all the crimes against nature he commits.
What with this climate catastrophe looming,
And the ongoing Coronavirus event,
The question of “What does it mean to be human?”
Might have to be rephrased to ask what it meant,
And where all of the humans went.
One more chorus, come on everybody now…
We are related to the birds
We’re related to the bees
We’re related to the bugs
We’re related to the trees
We’re related to bacteria
And to the manatees
And our closest relations…
are the chimpanzees.
|
||||
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