Map of the World (Michael Gray)
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- CPDL #23857:
- Editor: Michael Gray (submitted 2011-07-09). Score information: Letter (landscape), 34 pages, 3.3 MB Copyright: CC BY NC ND
- Edition notes: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
General Information
Title: Map of the World
Composer: Michael Gray
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Cantata geographica
Language: English
Instruments: Piano
Published: 2011
Description:
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
From here it’s a bird’s eye view of a lovely Earth
A patchwork quilt
On the crib of humanity’s birth
From here it’s a bird’s eye view of a lovely Earth
Even if the politics try to change ev’ry name
The dirt, the oceans,
And air
Still stay the same
From here it’s a bird’s eye view of a lovely Earth.
We were getting pretty tired of starring at the U.S.S.R.
Tel Aviv, Kyoto and Bonn
Still had their star
The British in Rhodesia didn’t know their days were done
And the French were still selling crepes in the streets of Saigon
Not like our map of the world
Not like our brand new beautiful map of the world
Not like our revis’d, updated laminated map of the world.
The powers that be left us tools that were top of the line
For the turn of the century
Eighteen ninety nine
Oh, Mister Grillo,
We owe it all to you
For giving our classroom a modern point of view
Thank you Mister Grillo for our map of the world
The bus’nesses in Hong Kong still had a London lease
Arabs and Israellies weren’t even thinking peace
The U.S. had a Philippine knot that was still firmly tied
And Germany had always been unified
Map of the world
Rearrange something strange on our map of the world
And Germany had always been unified!
The map we used to have had its old world charm
And they probably thought that it wouldn’t do us any harm
The government can still drop bombs with integrity
Just a few stray hits like a Chinese embassy
Map of the world
Everybody needs a map of the world
A test on the old map names we could pass with ease
Since half the globe was Spanish, French, or Portuguese
The sun hadn’t set on the British Empire’s mark
‘Cause God couldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark
Map of the world
Now the countries’ names are decided by lingua philes
And they must be playing Scrabble with alien tiles
Kyrgystan, Somalia, Myanmar
Are pieces of cake
But the other ones
Are in a code
That we won’t ever break
Map of the world
Right across the border on our map of the world
We’re just simply neighbors on our map of the world
Shouldn’t we be happy with our map of the world
We’re just simply neighbors on our map of the world
The world keeps shifting
Who can keep track of it all?
I wonder which map hangs on the President’s wall.
We’re not complaining though it might be a little too late
By next year it’ll already be out of date
It’s a glorious sight in room one-oh-two
Proving what a little bit of well plac’d funding can do
So wave your hats and clap for our map of the world
Ev’rybody stand up, clap for our map of the world