In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
They put a telescope in outer space
So Mother Earth could look about her space
And what she saw was rather shocking
It was Stephen Hawking
And he was talking 'bout expanding
Universal understanding
And that telescope
Forced her to contemplate as well as cope
With cosmological conjecture
And how that affects yer
Morning commute
And faced with this dilemma, I ask you
What on earth's a Mother Earth to do?
Turn off the Hubble
Stay out of trouble
Live in a bubble
With Barney Rubble
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum!
We'll pull the plug and watch it plummet down
No need to shoot, we'll simply dumb it down
Before it spoils our education
With information
And fills our heads up with a lotta
That erroneous errata
More importantly, we got a
Brand new paradigm
NASA is singing, "Can you spare a dime?"
And there's a starving astrophysicist
We don't need his assis-
Tence anymore.
'Cause from now on we spell intelligence
With a silent S-C-I-E-ence
Turn off the Hubble
Stay out of trouble
Live in a bubble
With Barney Rubble
Turn off the Hubble
Live in a bubble
Like Barney Rubble
'Cept only double
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum!
Now, Gallileo
Went way over his head
That's what they said
When he was excommunicated
He was a menace
To Genesis, they say
And to this day
We say to that Yea, verily, yea
And so we sent the president a list
Of every brilliant fundamentalist
Which some might call oxymoronical
Like the Times and Chronicle
And all them eggheads at the college
With degrees in Big Bang-ology
They ought to just apologetically acknowledge that
Our destiny
Is manifestly Charleton Heston-y
Let's saddle up and send a man to Mars
Where better than to Mars?
The planet from
Which some
Would tell us men have come
And incidentally, we've discovered that
An expanding universe makes us look fat
Turn off the Hubble
Stay out of trouble
Live in a bubble
With Barney Rubble
Turn off the Hubble
Live in a bubble
Like Barney Rubble
'Cept only double
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum Double-U!
Yes, given half a mind, you know the Shrub'll
Turn off the Hubble!
So Mother Earth could look about her space
And what she saw was rather shocking
It was Stephen Hawking
And he was talking 'bout expanding
Universal understanding
And that telescope
Forced her to contemplate as well as cope
With cosmological conjecture
And how that affects yer
Morning commute
And faced with this dilemma, I ask you
What on earth's a Mother Earth to do?
Turn off the Hubble
Stay out of trouble
Live in a bubble
With Barney Rubble
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum!
We'll pull the plug and watch it plummet down
No need to shoot, we'll simply dumb it down
Before it spoils our education
With information
And fills our heads up with a lotta
That erroneous errata
More importantly, we got a
Brand new paradigm
NASA is singing, "Can you spare a dime?"
And there's a starving astrophysicist
We don't need his assis-
Tence anymore.
'Cause from now on we spell intelligence
With a silent S-C-I-E-ence
Turn off the Hubble
Stay out of trouble
Live in a bubble
With Barney Rubble
Turn off the Hubble
Live in a bubble
Like Barney Rubble
'Cept only double
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum!
Now, Gallileo
Went way over his head
That's what they said
When he was excommunicated
He was a menace
To Genesis, they say
And to this day
We say to that Yea, verily, yea
And so we sent the president a list
Of every brilliant fundamentalist
Which some might call oxymoronical
Like the Times and Chronicle
And all them eggheads at the college
With degrees in Big Bang-ology
They ought to just apologetically acknowledge that
Our destiny
Is manifestly Charleton Heston-y
Let's saddle up and send a man to Mars
Where better than to Mars?
The planet from
Which some
Would tell us men have come
And incidentally, we've discovered that
An expanding universe makes us look fat
Turn off the Hubble
Stay out of trouble
Live in a bubble
With Barney Rubble
Turn off the Hubble
Live in a bubble
Like Barney Rubble
'Cept only double
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum dum dum
Dum dum dum Double-U!
Yes, given half a mind, you know the Shrub'll
Turn off the Hubble!
Lyrics submitted by BanachTarski
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