YASID (sort of): The L5 Song?
Kevin Riggle
reference to an "L5 Song" in _From Stargazers to Starships_ at
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Slagrng2.htm
The link they provide has broken, and a Google search turns up nothing
beyond the Stargazers reference. It's copyrighted 1978 by Bill Higgins and
Barry Gehm, and someone said it was published in NESFA 1 (the New England
Science Fiction Association?). Can anyone point me to the full lyrics?
Thanks in advance!
- Kevin
----------------------------------------------------------
"We can lick gravity, but sometimes the
paperwork is overwhelming."
- Wernher Von Braun, rocketry pioneer
Jon Leech
Kevin Riggle <vj$ri^gg#guess#l55e@mt$*guess#&cn1e#t.!@n()et> wrote:
>I am doing a report on space colonies and the like, and I ran into a
>reference to an "L5 Song" in _From Stargazers to Starships_ at
>
>http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Slagrng2.htm
>
>The link they provide has broken, and a Google search turns up nothing
>beyond the Stargazers reference. It's copyrighted 1978 by Bill Higgins and
>Barry Gehm, and someone said it was published in NESFA 1 (the New England
>Science Fiction Association?). Can anyone point me to the full lyrics?
>Thanks in advance!
"Home on Lagrange" - see
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/swil/FILKS/filkbook4.html#17
Last I knew, Bill's email was higgins 'at' fnal.fnal.gov, though I
haven't pinged him for a while.
Jon
__@/
Kevin
THANK YOU! (Did I double-post? Sorry about that. @#$%$#% ISP!)
- Kevin
-----------------------
"We can lick gravity, but sometimes
the paperwork is overwhelming."
-- Werner Von Braun, rocketry pioneer
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey
> In article <9tf07j$1b9$1...@ins21.netins.net>,
> Kevin Riggle <vj$ri^gg#guess#l55e@mt$*guess#&cn1e#t.!@n()et> wrote:
If Kevin Riggle wanted the authors of the song to send him e-mail, he
would have given his proper address instead of violating RFCs and giving a
screwed-up "From:" line, wouldn't he?
> >I am doing a report on space colonies and the like, and I ran into a
> >reference to an "L5 Song"
[...]
> >The link they provide has broken, and a Google search turns up nothing
> >beyond the Stargazers reference. It's copyrighted 1978 by Bill Higgins and
> >Barry Gehm, and someone said it was published in NESFA 1 (the New England
> >Science Fiction Association?). Can anyone point me to the full lyrics?
> >Thanks in advance!
>
> "Home on Lagrange" - see
>
> http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/swil/FILKS/filkbook4.html#17
I'll rummage and append my standard discussion of the song.
> Last I knew, Bill's email was higgins 'at' fnal.fnal.gov, though I
> haven't pinged him for a while.
Yeah, it has been a while, hasn't it? Good to hear from you, Jon. That
address is no longer valid; just send to simply hig...@fnal.gov.
___ O~~* /_) ' / / /_/ ' , , ' ,_ _ \|/
/ / - ~ -~~~~~~~~/_) / / / / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
/__// \ (_) (_) / | \
| | Bill Higgins Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
\ /
- - Internet: hig...@fnal.gov
~ New! Improved! Now with THREE great neutrino flavors!
===============
Here's a note I wrote on 14 February 1990 discussing the song in Space
Digest. It is our hope that Lagrange colonies will one day be constructed, and
that they will adopt "Home on Lagrange" as their national anthem, so that we
will get a royalty every time they play a ball game.
Bill
============================================================
I was interested to see [name withheld] quoting the song parody "Home on
Lagrange." Nice to know somebody is still singing it. I was saddened to see
that he quoted it without attribution.
"Home on Lagrange" was written by Dr. Barry Gehm and me in the summer of
1977. The pun was probably as old as O'Neill's space-colony idea, but we
were the first to do a whole song. It should be attributed:
Home on Lagrange (The L5 Song)
by Bill Higgins and Barry Gehm
Copyright 1978 by William S. Higgins and Barry D. Gehm
(Yes, we actually paid ten bucks to file the copyright.) Full versions of
the song were printed in the book *The Endless Frontier, Volume I*, edited
by Jerry Pournelle for Ace Books, in the Summer 1978 issue of *CoEvolution
Quarterly*, in the *NESFA Hymnal*, and in an issue of *L5 News* whose date I
can't now recall. It has been reprinted with permission in a number of less
widely-available publications as well. I performed it on a tape collection
called *Austin Ditty Limits*, [which must be out of print by now].
If anybody knows about other places it's been reprinted, I'd appreciate
hearing about it-- just because I like to keep track.
Home, home on Lagrange
Where we do what we do very well
We've achieved, so it seems,
One of our greatest dreams
We got money from Jerry Pournelle!
===========================================================
Home on Lagrange (The L5 Song)
by Bill Higgins and Barry Gehm
Copyright 1978 by William S. Higgins and Barry D. Gehm
(Sung to the tune of "Home on the Range")
Oh, give me a locus
Where the gravitons focus
Where the three-body problem is solved
Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K
And the cold virus never evolved
CHORUS:
Home, home on Lagrange
Where the space debris always collects
We possess, so it seems,
Two of our greatest dreams:
Solar power and zero-gee sex!
We eat algae pie, and our vacuum is high
Our ball bearings are perfectly round
Our horizons are curved, and our warheads are MIRVed
And a kilogram weighs half a pound
You don't need no oil, nor a tokamak coil
Solar stations provide Earth with juice
Power beams are sublime, so nobody will mind
If we cook an occasional goose
(Interlude, sung to the tune of "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning")
All the cattle are standing like statues
All the cattle are standing like statues
They smell of roast beef every time I ride by
And the hawks and the falcons are dropping like flies...
I've been feeling quite blue since the crystals I grew
Became too big to fit through the door
But from slices I've sold, Hewlett-Packard, I'm told,
Made a chip that was seven-foot-four
When we run out of space for our burgeoning race
No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch
When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart
If we just find a big enough wrench
I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space
And living up here is a bore
Tell the shiggies don't cry, they can kiss me goodbye
Cause I'm moving next week to L-four!
Kevin
> If Kevin Riggle wanted the authors of the song to send him e-mail, he
> would have given his proper address instead of violating RFCs and giving a
> screwed-up "From:" line, wouldn't he?
I apologize for that. Buried in amongst the gobbelty-gook is
vjriggle <at> mtcnet <dot> net
(I'm a bit paranoid about spam, and quite frankly I never imagined I'd
be annoying enough to merit a personal reply! <g>)
I attributed the song exactly as it appears on the website
(http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/swil/FILKS/filkbook4.html#17)
Words: Bill Higgins and Barry Gehm c. 1978
Music: "Home on the Range"
I figured (mistakenly?) that you really wouldn't want to be bothered
by a
guy who's only quoting your song in a high school English paper.
Sorry if I offended.
Sincerely,
Kevin Riggle
vjriggle <at> mtcnet <dot> net
(Use this; post address is spam-bait.)
P.S. rasfw in general: I was just informed today that Usenet is no
longer available for puny dial-up customers such as myself, so I'm
stuck using Google Groups. Google won't let you obfuscate your
address, so in the interests of spammer confusion I've gotten a
Hotmail account. You may reset your killfiles accordingly. ;) I'll
keep my real address in my .sig so anybody who really wants to can get
in touch.
-------------------
"We can lick gravity, but sometimes
the paperwork is overwhelming."
-- Werner Von Braun, rocketry pioneer
-----------------------------------
"Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey" <hig...@fnal.gov> wrote in message
news:Pine.SGI.4.31.0112011...@fsgi01.fnal.gov...