The Greatest Show on Earth

Lyrics

[Part I. Four Point Six – 00:00-05:47] [Orchestral Intro – 03:19] [Interlude: Floor Jansen] Ooh, ooh Ooh, ooh [Verse 1: Floor Jansen] Archaean horizon The first sunrise On a pristine Gaea Opus perfectum somewhere there [Interlude: Floor Jansen] (Us sleeping) Ah, ah [Spoken – Professor Richard Dawkins] "After sleeping through a hundred million centuries We have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet Sparkling with color, bountiful with life Within decades we must close our eyes again Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief Time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe And how we have come to wake up in it?" (Aaaah) [Part II. Life – 05:47-10:08] [Instrumental Break] [Verse 2: Floor Jansen] The cosmic law of gravity Pulled the newborns around a fire A careless, cold infinity In every vast direction Lonely farer in the Goldilocks zone She has a tale to tell From the stellar nursery into a carbon feast Enter LUCA [Pre-Chorus: Floor Jansen] The tapestry of chemistry There's a writing in the garden Leading us to the Mother of all [Chorus: Floor Jansen] We are one We are a universe Forbears of what will be scions of the Devonian sea Aeons pass, writing the tale of us all A day-to-day new opening For the greatest show on Earth [Verse 3: Floor Jansen] Ion channels Welcoming the outside world to the stuff of stars Bedding the tree of a biological holy Enter life [Pre-Chorus: Floor Jansen] The tapestry of chemistry There's a writing in the garden Leading us to the mother of all [Chorus: Floor Jansen] We are one We are a universe Forbears of what will be scions of the Devonian sea Aeons pass, writing the tale of us all A day-to-day new opening For the greatest show on Earth [Instrumental Break] [Bridge: Floor Jansen] We are here to care for the garden The wonder of, birth of, every form most beautiful Every form most beautiful [Chorus: Floor Jansen] We are one We are a universe Forbears of what will be scions of the Devonian sea Aeons pass, writing the tale of us all A day-to-day new opening For the greatest show on Earth [Part III. The Toolmaker – 10:08-16:29] [Instrumental Break] [Animals Sound] [Guitar Solo] [Verse 4: Marco Hietala & Floor Jansen] After a billion years The show is still here Not a single one of your fathers died young The handy travelers out of Africa Little Lucy of the Afar Gave birth to fantasy To idolatry To self destructive weaponry Enter the god of gaps Deep within the past Atavistic dread of the hunted [Verse 5: Marco Hietala & Floor Jansen] Enter Ionia The cradle of thought The architecture of understanding The human lust to feel so exceptional To rule the Earth Hunger for shiny rocks For giant mushroom clouds The will to do just as you'd be done by Enter history The grand finale Enter ratkind [Chorus: Marco Hietala & Floor Jansen] Man, he took his time in the sun Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library [Instrumental Break] [Chorus: Marco Hietala & Floor Jansen] Man, he took his time in the sun Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library Man, he took his time in the sun Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library [Refrain: Marco Hietala & Floor Jansen] We were here We were here We were here We were here [Part IV. The Understanding – 16:29-21:55] [Wind Sound] [Instrumental Break] [Spoken – Professor Richard Dawkins] "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?" [Orchestral Interlude] [Spoken – Professor Richard Dawkins] "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one. And that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." [Part V. Sea-Worn Driftwood 21:55-24:02] [Instrumental Outro]