This is the oldest tune on the CD, harkening back to my old analog/MIDI hybrid studio in Durham. Weeks after our honeymoon, I took a drum machine on a business trip, to program all the drum parts on this tune. Then, I built each layer into the song you hear. My favorite comment about this song was a buddy who said, immediately upon hearing it, "Wow, that's exhausting!". It's a tune I wrote in the mid-90s about the collective hubris of our species and the unblinking certainty that all our impacts on this finite planet are somehow admirable.
We got steel and concrete
We got the skins of fellow mammals
to protect our feet
We extract, we refine
We got substances that linger
'til the end of time
We got complicated living quarters
for most of us
We created artificial borders
for the rest
We got fire, we got wheel
We got medicines to change the way
you want to feel
We got tiny thinking machines
unencumbered by the feelings
of human beings
From a faraway star
Do they think about Life on Earth?
Are they even impressed
with the riches of Life on Earth?
We've got rocks, we got knives
We've got lots of little soldier bees
to guard the hive
We've got pigments in our skins
to determine the starting position
we're in
If we could only train chimpanzees
We'd be lying on the beach
under tropical breezes
waiting for the chimps to bring us
our supplies
After all we've achieved
are they jealous of Life on Earth
From the reaches of space
do they wonder of Life on Earth?