Composer: Kit Fine. Vocals: Geoff Brennan. Piano: Kit Fine.
Performed at dinner after Kit Fine's Jack Smart lecture at ANU on June 29, 2010, with Jack Smart in attendance.
I. Thesis
We have a very good friend by the name of Jack,
A philosopher of very high note.
And this is what he wrote:
The physical, the physical,
Oh how I adore the physical.
It's everywhere,
There's nothing else.
So who would want more
When that's what there is?
Who could want more
When that is it?
Take a pang of pain,
Ask what it could be.
What else can a plain man say
But neurons firing neurons firing,
Neurons firing, firing, firing away!
Some may think there's space and time
But I believe they're both the same.
Time cannot race,
So time is space.
And who could want more
When that's how it is?
Who could want more
When that is it?
Take a memory,
It is of the past.
That's why you think time goes on.
It's all a great big cosmic con,
A great big, great big, great big cosmic con!
Now some may think they're right and wrong,
But I just think you maximize.
For what should I do
But what's good for me and you?
And who could want more
When that's what is best?
Who could want more
When that is it!
You must kill a man
To save many more.
What then would a good man do
But maximize and save them lives,
Always maxi-, maxi-, maxi-mize.
II. Antithesis
Such were the views of our friend Jack.
But all was not right.
Jack, he had a fright.
A voice kept whispering, constantly whispering,
Whispering in his ear.
Voice: Cricket. Cricket.
Jack: Cricket? Cricket?
What is cricket to me?
Voice: Cricket to you?
Jack: Yes, cricket to me.
Voice: Can you fix it?
Jack: Cricket?
Voice: That's it!
Don't you get it?
Jack: Cricket?
Voice: Get it.
Can't you save it?
Jack: Save it?
Voice: That's it.
Jack: What do you mean?
Voice: Let me explain.
How can something so sublime
Be the same as filth and grime?
How can something so fine and jolly
Be no different from slime and jelly?
How can it be?
How can it, how can it be?
You know how it is on the field
As you bat or bowl the ball.
Time slows down when you play the game
Your heart stops beating and the world is still.
How can it be?
How can it, how can it be?
Cricket is a noble game,
Moral to its very core.
Fair is fair and foul is foul
Whether you win or whether you lose.
How can it be?
How can it, how can it be?
Great was Jack's consternation.
How would he solve the problem?
To save cricket, philosophy too.
Was this something he could do?
Yes!
No!
Got it!
Damn it!
Now, no.
Wow, woe.
No, Yno, Yno, Yne,
Yne Yne, Ynes, Yes,
YES!
III. Synthesis
The world is physical, totally physical,
Consequentialist too.
But cricket exists in another dimension,
genuinely mental, moral and temporal.
That is how we save the world,
Save the world and cricket too.
So all is well with the world.
And cricket has been saved
From philosophical, ontological,
Methodological, deontological,
Trepidation, machination,
Invalidation, obfuscation,
Or some combination, permutation
Of the fore-mentioned list.
Otherwise known as a specification,
Tabulation, confabulation,
Boring narration ....
There's no need to say more
For enough has been said,
Or sung or read,
Or somehow understood.
For cricket,
Yes cricket,
Has been saved
From the world!