All songs
copyrighted
by David Rood
except as noted.
Ceci N'est Pas Une Chanson (This Is Not A Song)
Story
Magritte's painting "The Treason of the Pictures" shows a pipe with the words, "This is not a pipe" written above it. Magritte left it open to interpretation, which is what makes it a great painting. That being done, when I decided to use the title for a song, the question became, "If it isn't a song, what is it?"When I was a graduate student, a professor began an introductory class on the solar system with the question, "What man-made thing will last the longest?" Somebody suggested the Pyramids, since they had lasted so long already. After allowing that they would last for some time yet, he urged us to consider, in light of our geological education, what places might be subject to less erosion than the plains of Giza. Once we made that step, the rest was easier.
It is said that the one gift of Astronomy to human knowledge is a sense of scale, of how big the universe is; and the gift of Geology is a sense of time scale, of how old the Earth is and how little things add up over time to produce big results. The hard part, of course, was trying to capture both in a song.
The last two lines are a quote from T.S. Eliot's "The Dry Salvages".
Lyrics
[emin] Even in those days the Steppes were ancient[D] The gods and monsters of the first dynasty [C]
Six [D] thousand years had [e] slept [eminmaj6]
[emin] His name was Khufu, and he desired
[D] To be remembered for eternity
[C] Six thousand [D] years the wind has [E] swept [E7]
the [amin] Great Pyramid at Giza
[G] While [C/G] the [G] gods drifted [C] by [F/C] [C]
[B] In the Boat of Millions of Years
[emin] Listening [emin/f#] to the [emin/G] sighs [emin/A]
The [amin] music of the [Dsus4] wind
That [G] continues [G/C] [G] to erode [C]
Moans, [D] "This is not a song;
It is the [C] sound [D] of a [emin] soul."
Six million windswept years from now
The rocks at Giza will be gone
But the memory of man remains
In a deeper, drier desert
Stands a flag and a footprint
And a plaque that reads, "We came
in peace for all mankind,
Though mankind is no more
The tide of our dreams pulled us
Once to this bright shore
This sign of life in vacuum
Sounds a single note so pure
Ringing, "This is not a song;
It is the spirit of adventure."
In six billion years the Earth
and Moon will be consumed
When the Sun has grown too old
Yet the last remaining messengers
Of Earth will travel the stars
Though their fires have gone cold
Our radio waves and light
Fly faster, farther, first
After heralding the siblings
Who first discovered worlds
Here in our backyard
By Saturn and Jupiter
The song is, "Not farewell,
but fare forward, Voyager."
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