Geek Of The Week February 12, 2010

Polly Loves the Rain (ft. Joe Covenant)

Now Polly is a positive proton, she was born a long time ago; a ten billionth of a second after the big bang created in that great inferno. She survived the mass annihilation | when the universe was one second old; only one in a billion baryons made it and went on to become everything we can hold. Almost four hundred thousand years later, the first atoms became stable; little Polly acquired an electron and they’re nearly inseparable. After the first supernova, there was oxygen floating around, created by the alpha process, and little Polly was chemically bound. She was part of a molecule of water at the time of the solar system’s birth; she became part of the accretion disc that eventually formed our Earth.

Yeah… the one we live on.

Now Polly experienced gravitation; Polly joined up with a comet’s core. She was getting ready to change the clmate — so suck on that, Al Gore. The comet crashed into the young planet Earth; Polly melted into the sea. They say a lot of the water we have now arrived very suddenly. Polly was part of the primeval ocean when the earth was still young and hot; there was no atmosphere; there was no life; but Polly was not distraught. In the blazing sun she steamed away and floated in the sky so black; she condensed on some dust and put her trust in gravity, and rode on back.

It wouldn’t be the last time.

Polly the proton’s been here before; she was once part of King Tut’s sweat. Way back in ancient Egyptian times, she made his royal forehead wet A breeze blew up across the Nile, and Polly was vaporized. The invisible vapor cooled and then Polly was not surprised to meet up with a speck of dust and more water molecules; they formed a droplet and then a cloud made up of tiny globules. Now when you’re feeling jerked around, and when you’re feeling blue, or when you think no one could run in circles half as much as you do — take a moment to think of Polly. She’s gone ’round again and again; she still hasn’t gotten tired of the ride but I’ve got no more rhymes for our friend.

She just keeps on riding that waterslide.

[Prechorus]

Yeah, Polly the Proton’s been everywhere
All around this old galaxy
Polly’s been part of a glacier
And Polly’s been lost in the sea
Polly the Proton’s been down your throat
And passed through your left kidney
Yeah, she’s been drunk, she’s been pissed
Been frozen; she’s been dissed
And what she loves the most is being rain

[The original plan was for the song to run verse -- prechorus -- chorus 3 times with a longer ad lib and fade, but the song was going to run well over 5 minutes that way. I rearranged it to put the first two verses back to back, leave out chorus 2, and remove the longer ad lib vocal fade out.]

[Chorus 1]

Polly loves the rain
Coming down as rain
Since long before the plain was formed
Since long before Spain was named
Polly’s loved the rain

[Chorus 2]

Polly loves the rain
Coming down as rain
Splashing on the Spanish plain
Spaniards fine it quite mundane
But Polly loves the rain

[Chorus 3]

Polly loves the rain
Onto fields of grain
Over Alba’s* great floodplains
Failing** up the river Tay***
Polly loves the rain

[Ad lib and fade-out]

Polly rides the rain
Polly’s in the rain
Polly is the rain
Polly has no brain
But Polly loves the rain

*Joe sang this Scottish word for Scotland
**Joe’s Scottish pronunciation of “filling”
***I suggested “a river or Loch that fits the rhyming scheme” and Joe picked the one that runs by his home city of Dundee