SP3055
The place called Planet Earth
Music: Trad. arr Sheena Phillips , Words: Sheena Phillips
Voicing: SATB, piano (optional band)
Performance time approx: 4m 00s
Range S: c'# – d'' / A: c' – d'' / T: c# – f' / B: c – d'
Price code: E
Complexity:
A stirring piece for any programme about the environment, with original lyrics about global warming, set to the traditional American tune House of the Rising Sun. The tune is passed between lower and upper voices and treated differently each time, building to a startling aleatoric section in which all voices independently become higher and louder, evoking the crisis of rising CO2 levels. A verse of shouted warning follows and the piece ends with a return to the opening verse, depicting our beautiful earth of blue and green.
We supply a one-page lead sheet which you can copy for the audience if you want to involve them. We also provide instructions on how to interpret the notation in the aleatoric section (letter D).
Note: the audio realisation above gives only a rough idea of how the aleatoric and spoken word sections sound in performance.
There is a place called Planet Earth,
It is so blue and green,
It’s covered round with seas and skies,
A wonder to be seen.
The long ice ages came and went,
The dinosaurs they died,
And then up came the human race
And spread itself worldwide.
There came an age of industry
When coal and oil were mined,
And we burned them for their energy
And work of every kind.
We drove our cars along the ground,
We flew our planes above,
We felled the trees and killed the birds
And hurt the earth we love.
And now the carbon's building up,
And now the ocean's warm,
And now we need to turn around
And cease from doing harm.
So stop the hunt for fossil fuels,
And start on wind and sun, [or: Do more with wind and sun]
And learn to treasure Planet Earth -
For it's our only one.
There is a place called Planet Earth,
It is so blue and green,
It's covered round with seas and skies,
A wonder to be seen.
Lyrics © Sheena Phillips and used with permission