The Galaxy Song, revisited

Three days shy of a decade ago, I published a post entitled ‘A little perspective for the new year‘, which featured ‘The Galaxy Song’ from Monty Python‘s The Meaning of Life.

I considered waiting another three days before posting this so as to coincide with that earlier post’s anniversary, but you never know; anything can happen in just three days, and I didn’t want to risk you missing this little gem.

Eric Idle / Brian Cox – The Galaxy Song / Wonders of Life trailer 2013

Eric:
Just remember…
You’re a tiny little person on a planet
 in a universe expanding and immense;
That life began evolving
 and dissolving
 and resolving
 in the deep primordial oceans by the hydrothermal vents;
Our Earth which had its birth almost five billion years ago
 from out of a collapsing cloud of gas;
Through life which was quite new
 and eventually led to you
 in only three point five billion years or less.

Brian:
My director just said, “Just have a wander round,” which is easy for him to say. Just over there is a pride of lions with young cubs, so the mothers are very protective. “Just wander around a bit,” said the director.

Eric:
Deoxyribonucleic acid helps us replicate,
 and randomly mutate from day to day.

We left the seas
 and climbed the trees
 and our biologies
 continue to evolve through DNA.

We’re ninety-eight point nine percent
 the same as chimpanzees
 whose trees we left three million years ago
 to wander, swapping genes,
 out of Africa – which means
 we’re related to everyone we know.
(Oh, ‘ello luv!)

Life is quite strange,
 life is quite weird,
 life is really quite odd.

Life from a star
 is far more bizarre
 than an old bearded bloke they call ‘god’.

So, gaze at the sky,
 and start asking why
 you’re even here on this call?

Although life is fraught,
 the odds are so short,
 you’re lucky to be here at all.

Brian:
How wide can they open their jaws?
[Ah, three foot wide…]
About three feet?
[… and they can swallow a man whole.]
Yeah, so about three foot wide, can swallow a man whole…

Eric:
Standing on a planet which is spinning round a star:
 one of just a billion trillion suns
 in a universe that’s ninety billion light years side to side
 wondering where the heck it all came from.

You’ve a tiny little blink of life
 to try and understand
 what on Earth is really going on
 in biology and chemistry
 which made you you
 and made me me
 but don’t ask me –
 I only wrote the song.

Brian:
Hello. […] He’s coming for us… oh, god.

See you in 2022. I hope you have a good one!