What a wonderful world – really?
April 2020
Sometimes my cup of bitterness doth overfloweth… but when you look around the world and see what some humans have done to it (and continue to) then it is not always easy to be optimistic. In the lyrics below, I have taken a leaf out of the book of one of my favourite Pythons, Eric Idle.
He wrote alternative lyrics to the relentlessly optimistic song “All Things Bright and Beautiful” which you can hear at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEKDYIYMgBc If you want to know more about my thoughts on that particular song then see https://www.madsmeds.org/
By contrast “What a Wonderful World“ is a hauntingly beautiful song and will reach a new audience as it features in the latest “Dr Dolittle” film. It was written in 1967 not least to help comfort war victims especially from Viet Nam. I was 8 years old then and thought the world was completely wonderful too so I have no wish to denigrate the actual song. However, fast-forward 52 years and throw in 20 years of reading Greenpeace reports and I can see how the world is being made less wonderful year by year. Plus I like to think I am also following in Eric’s larger footsteps.
What a wonderful world – really?
I see trees cut down, rain forests too
More greenhouse gas for me and for you
And I think to myself what a terrible world
I see skies of red from forests alight
The smoke hides the day, but can’t hide the blight
And I think to myself what a terrible world
The colours of pollution so ugly in the sky
Climate change making the good earth so barren and so dry
I see men chasing cash, they don’t care what they do
They’re really saying I hate you
I see babies crying, I watch them grow
They’ll hurt much more than I’ll ever know
Then I think to myself what a terrible world
Yes I think to myself why do this to our world?
Oh no!!
If you would like to contrast this with a truly beautiful version of “What a Wonderful World” (and I don’t mind saying that this version brings a lump to my throat because this really is how the world could be/should be/would be if we would only collectively get together and cooperate with each other… ) then listen to Louis Armstrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWzrABouyeE
Finally (just to finish on a more optimistic note than I began with) below is a wonderful quote from Carl Sagan.
Solidarity
Brian Madican
April 2020
