The Meaning of Life
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough.
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough...
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour.
That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day.
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour
Of the Galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our Galaxy, itself, contains 100 billion stars,
It's a 100,000 light years, side to side.
It bulges in the middle 16,000 light years thick,
But out by us it's just 3000 light years wide.
We're 30,000 light years from galactic central point,
We go round every 200 million years.
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding Universe.
The Universe, itself, keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz.
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know.
12 million miles a minute,
And that's the fastest speed there is.
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
Because there's bugger all, down here on Earth.
Lyric from "Galaxy Song" by Eric Idle
Composer: Eric Idle/John Du Prez