Another new song
Dec. 31st, 2011 04:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI intended to put this up a couple of days ago, but have been kind of pressed for time due to the whole family visit thing. I am having a good time, but am so busy I have a hard time even *practicing* (I have been doing it, though) let alone anything else. But I can't sleep right now, despite the fact that sleep would be really good if I could just manage it, so I figured it was a time to get caught up on LJ more or less, and hey--this post is all ready to go and sending it out just takes a few minutes.
I guess this could be considered "another of my atheist songs" given that I've now written two.
*What I am trying to get at here is that you can't get an accurate measurement of the distance from New York to San Francisco with either a ruler or a radio telescope--and if you're measuring your value on the wrong scale, of course you get a reading that's off; sometimes by several orders of magnitude. In my opinion this means it you will never get a reliable reading measuring your own life against "the universe" or "the meaning of the universe." It's like trying to measure your age by determining the amount of carbon 13 in your baby teeth.
So it's true that nothing anyone can do in her life will make any difference on a cosmic scale, but personally, I don't care what a pulsar thinks. The correct scale is the scale that measures what matters to you. For me, that's other people, on a human lifespan.
That is both the central idea of the song and the central idea of this verse, and sometimes I think I captured it, and sometimes I think I didn't. The acid test, of course, is whether it comes across to the listener. What do you think?
I guess this could be considered "another of my atheist songs" given that I've now written two.
Scale lyrics by Catherine Faber 2011 mp3 here a capella mp3 here G D C G I hope, when I die, that my worth will be clear, G D C D That life will be different, because I was here. Em C Em F I hope that some measure of knowledge or grace C G D C I brought, will outlive me, my track and my trace. (chorus) G D C G I don’t want Infinity noticing me; G D Em D Eternity crowding my shoulder to see; G D C G There’s quite enough pressure to triumph or fail, C G D C (end on G) While living my life on a humbler scale. Four point five billion, the earth’s years unfold; The sky that surrounds us is three times as old-- So it’s easy to see, and the answer is flat: No one is going to matter to that. A drop in the ocean; who cares if it thrives? And yet in that drop may swim thousands of lives... To measure your value, the scale will be true, That measures the beings who matter to you.* The earth will not love me, and time will not spare; The Sky won’t respect me, but what do I care? One scale is the measure of merit and strife, The scale of the humans I hold in my life.
*What I am trying to get at here is that you can't get an accurate measurement of the distance from New York to San Francisco with either a ruler or a radio telescope--and if you're measuring your value on the wrong scale, of course you get a reading that's off; sometimes by several orders of magnitude. In my opinion this means it you will never get a reliable reading measuring your own life against "the universe" or "the meaning of the universe." It's like trying to measure your age by determining the amount of carbon 13 in your baby teeth.
So it's true that nothing anyone can do in her life will make any difference on a cosmic scale, but personally, I don't care what a pulsar thinks. The correct scale is the scale that measures what matters to you. For me, that's other people, on a human lifespan.
That is both the central idea of the song and the central idea of this verse, and sometimes I think I captured it, and sometimes I think I didn't. The acid test, of course, is whether it comes across to the listener. What do you think?
