Carl Sagan doesn’t really come to mind too often. Every once in a while when I look up at the cosmos or when life has me pondering just how insignificant this planet is compared to the universe he might pop in my brain. Same with theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking; last time dude came to mind was when he won the Presidential Medal of Freedom a few months back. Now I’m thinking about both of them thanks to this musical tribute by John Boswell. The music, the video, the editing… Most things like this aren’t very easy on the ears (cheap gimmicks rarely are), but this one is pretty damn beautiful, if you ask me. And slightly disturbing…even if Sagan does sound a lot like Kermit…
If you like the spaced out music vibe take a peep at John Boswell’s site, he’s got a lot of tunes you can download for free.
For your enjoyment, hit the jump to read the lyrics…oooh, spacey!
[Sagan]
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe
Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time
The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars
A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way
The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature
I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky
But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions
The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has it’s own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world
[Hawking]
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit
From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas
[Sagan]
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds
The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we’ve waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting
