Last Human     

This was week two of 52tochangetheworld! Did a nice slideshow for the video this week. It's at the end so listen to the whole song! For those of you who are interested I used ImageMagick on Gentoo Linux on my G3 ibook. Pretty awesome use of old technology if I do say so myself:-)

As it happens the song is not unrelated to this. I had a sort of vision of the last human alive keeling over to die having left the lights turned on. (I have an odd sense of humour perhaps...) We impatiently burn away the earth's resources and we don't realise that nature is growing *for* us. It could do so much for us if we were only patient enough to let it.

Don't get me wrong - I love technology. In fact I'm a bona-fide nerd... I just think it is more valuable when it encourages patience and altruism (think open source/linux) than shiny gadgets that claim they'll solve all your problems!

Anyway, songwriting-wise this one reminds me pleasantly of Peter Gabriel. See what you think...

Every day we tread the capitalist techno-mill
A pseudo connection to the world for good or for ill
Shiny plastic and metal gadgets entertain us still
Circuits trained to instantaneously execute our will

The last human left the light on
And the flowers began to bloom once again
This world is bigger and older than all of us
and more majestic than any of our miscreations

There's something you should slow down and see
It matters to me, it matters to me

We worship at the altar of bigger, faster, cheaper
Economies get stronger while every day our bodies they grow weaker
Toys are wonderful things but we teach our kids they should play nice
Not tear apart our playpen with impatience, insecurity and vice

We are stewards, not lords
But together we are the earth
People are effect, not cause
Together we are the earth.


Last Human by Phoenix Imago (Rob Kay) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.