Galaxy Song
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The Galaxy Song is an upbeat and somewhat nihilstic song from the movie Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, later released on the album Monty Python Sings. The lyrics include a number of scientific theories about the creation of the Universe, as well as a small number of astronomical facts, many of which are surprisingly accurate.
Eric Idle sings that the Earth is 'revolving at nine hundred miles an hour'; the actual figure (at the Equator) is just over 1,000. He gives the correct figure for the Earth's orbital speed, 19 miles (29 kilometres) per second, and - as They Might Be Giants would do later - notes that the Sun is 'the source of all our power'. (In fact, geothermal power does not stem from the Sun, while tidal power derives mostly from the Moon.)
Idle's figures for the size of the Milky Way galaxy are roughly correct. He understates the speed at which the Sun orbits the 'galactic central point', but he gives a good estimate for the total time per orbit (about two hundred million years).
The second-to-last verse explains that the universe is expanding, and furthermore that the speed of light is the 'fastest speed there is'. Again, Idle's estimate is a good one: 12 million miles per minute, versus the standard figure, about 11.18 million miles per minute.
The final verse puts the song in a sort of Pythonic moral context:
- 'So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
- 'How amazingly unlikely is your birth
- 'And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
- ''Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!'
