Digital Tradition Mirror

The Joy of Locomotion

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

The Joy of Locomotion

There was a little blastula, no larger than a germ
Who performed invagination in his mother's mesoderm
And then his nascent cilia with joy began to squirm
In ecstasy supreme.

Chorus: Oh the joy of locomotion, down within the depths of ocean
        Oh to feel the great commotion within each blastomere.

No protozoan can ever guess the pleasure he did feel
When he felt within his ectoderm a growing gastrocele
With joy and pride his polar cells at length began to reel
In foolish self-content.

But oh, alas for youthful pride as upward he did soar
He caught a tuft of spiculi upon his blastophore
And trying hard to get it off his ectoderm he tore
A great big ugly rent.
"Oh mother dear," he cried in grief, "come quickly now and try
To heal my little ectoderm or else I'll have to die."
But his mother dear was sessile and could only sit and cry
From her exterrent pore.

No every night his little ghost within the deep is found
Lamenting to the annelids that burrow in the ground
The hydroids wave their tentacles and shudder at the sound
Of this familiar strain.

(Tune: Battle Hymn of the Republic)
RG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!