What would it be?
Posted on | May 30, 2008 | 73 Comments
If aliens came down to earth and surveyed our planet, its people, cultures, customs and habits, what do you think the thing they’d be most impressed with would be?
Writing, perhaps? Our ability to create stories that live in people’s minds for their whole lives?
Art? Beautiful paintings, sculptures, etchings and such. That some people have such wonderful ability to create real art (and not some spunk covered sheets like that old geebag Emin) would be impressive to them, no?
Architecture? From simple cave dwellings we have progressed to making enormous buildings that reach high into the sky. Some are ugly, some are rather sleek and wonderful, but it’s an achievement of mankind.
Maybe it’d just be the fact we have developed, most of us anyway, a moral compass by which we try to live our lives. We don’t always succeed but the fact that most of us try and do the right thing most of the time, albeit on the back of a primitive fear of Gods, must be an interesting concept.
Me, I think it’s music. It’s something we take for granted but is there anything else that can cheer us up, make us sad, send shivers down our spines, put a spring in your step or just be so emotive? You don’t need to understand the lyrics necessarily, the melody, the chord change can be just as powerful as whatever the singer’s singing about. And, of course, not every piece of music has singing.
If you could choose one piece of music to beam into space to say ‘Here we are – this is what we have created’, what would it be?
For me it’s got to be the end music from the Incredible Hulk.
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May 30th, 2008 @ 9:02 am
Casta Diva
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:05 am
or the 12″ extended Ghost Town by The Specials
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:06 am
Yeah…!
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:06 am
If I wanted to impress them with how evolved we are, then the aria “Soave Si’l Vento” by Mozart.
If I wanted them to know what we’re really like, I’d send “My Ding-a-Ling”.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:17 am
Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish you were here?’
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Chesney Hawkes, The one and only.
No competition.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:29 am
Twenty, you should read Musicophila by Oliver Sacks – talks about the effect of music on the brain. Fascinating stuff, particularly on the evolution of human understanding of music.
Following Tinman18′s example, to impress, Strauss’ Blue Danube
and for song I’m gonna go with “Baby Don’t Cry” by INXS, simply cos it’s playing on my iPod right now.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:29 am
“Music for a found harmonium” by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra – put a smile on their faces – or whatever.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:30 am
I would beam the Eurovision competition in it’s entirety, that would prevent the green, multi tentacled,bugeyed fuckers from coming here.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:33 am
Once upon a time in America – Ennio Morricone.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Agadoo!
Class story of the year
“New Zealand man convicted of assault with hedgehog”
Some Gems in there
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080530/tts-nzealand-crime-hedgehog-offbeat-c1b2fc3.html
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:37 am
Jaysus Twenty. It’s a bank holiday Friday and after yesterday’s hilarity I thought you would have been entitled to take today off and certainly after the last few days of 100+ posts.
A post like Today Twenty is out of the office. Fuck off and enjoy the weekend everyone.
Also today’s blog, from the man who wrote his version of the old man and the sea earlier this week, is fairly shite.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:45 am
Speaking of the end music from the Hulk, is it just me or does anyone else thinks that James “snivelling prick” Blunt stole it for the intro to the dreadful “Beautiful”?
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:55 am
Vide Cor Meum. And that is that.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:57 am
Incredible Hulk theme isn’t a bad choice at all. *nerdy fact * at the end of the new trailer for the Ed Norton “hulk” film, a teeny bit of it is played.
In a similar vein i’d go for the theme song to Taxi..
OR
“Jump” by Van Halen. THe synthesizer solo in the middle is the absolute pinnacle of human achievement. The perfect marriage of technology and art.
Niall O’K once interviewed me live on Dundalk radio about my love of it. True story.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:58 am
Niall O’K once interviewed me live on Dundalk radio about my love of it. True story.
Radio has never reached greater heights, this is for sure.
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:02 am
Maybe a recording of that interview could be played to the aliens?
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:02 am
All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.
- Walter Pater
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:08 am
Last Night by The Strokes because it is the perfect song for a Friday before the long weekend and because I heard some guy on a building site belting out the lyrics yesterday as I passed by and I had forgotten all about it until then.
Or Dashboard by Modest Mouse-the lyrics about erasing and recording the wrong episodes, remind me of an ex-girlfriend.
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:13 am
Allegri Misereri by the Tallis Scholars.
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:18 am
Anything by David Gray
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:19 am
“The Heart Asks Pleaseue First” by Michael Nyman from the soundtrack to “The Piano”
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:21 am
Should read….”The Heart Asks Pleasure First” by Michael Nyman from the soundtrack to “The Piano”
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:21 am
The theme from the Mission.
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:22 am
We gathered that, Monsieur Cantona, but assumed you were spelling pleasure in a French accent.
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:24 am
Something by Damien Rice
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:28 am
I say we shoot the fuckers. We couldn’t even guarantee that they have ears that allow them to hear music the way we do. But they would still need energy to exist, and who’s to say that they wouldn’t decide to devour us at some stage. I say we hit them. Hard. To the tune of Spaceman by Babylon Zoo.
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:39 am
Beefheart – you are a pox riddle cuntsack and no mistake.
And you, Sniffle. Your card is well and truly marked.
Hugh – surely most aliens would have ears of some kind. Maybe they’d operate at higher/lower frequencies though.
What would be really cool is if the aliens that came we docile and more delicious than fillet steak.
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:46 am
I’d play them anything by Nailerzzzzz – If we’re lucky they’ll take him back with them and he can rule their territory with his fist
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:46 am
Tinman: folks from inchicore don’t speak with a French accent….reinds me of one of my favourite Tommy Tiernan lines: …saying that the Cork accent always reminded him of tinkers trying to speak french.
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:52 am
That’s is classic Tommy tiernan, v funny.
I can never come up with an answer to these questions. How to choose one??
I read the Nailerzz peiece in HP yesterday. He foes for a run past his stllborn son’s grave every night and the night before, enemies had been lying in wait for him and slashed him in the face, held a gun to his head, which miraculously stuck when they pulled the trigger. They got stabbed in the ass… there’s even more golden material in there.
He looks alarmingly like a (fat) young Ray Winstone.
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:03 am
‘foes’ for a run? Well, it’s an apt typo…
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:04 am
A Jim Corr solo
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:11 am
Nice one Jo – geting the “fat” dig in. He’ll hunt ya down for that one. He will….
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:13 am
‘Little Wing’ – 6 minute guitar version by Stevie Ray Vaughan.
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:14 am
Freebird!
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:26 am
All kinds of Ebery’tin by Dana
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:26 am
Apologies for being missing for the last couple of days. I had one of my Broadband connections disconnected, and the idiots went and cut off the wrong one.
Jo, is this the song you meant? http://tinyurl.com/6ahayk
(Probably not suitable for work)
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:42 am
Maria Callas -Vissi d’arte.
May 30th, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
“The Blowers Daughter”
May 30th, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
No, seriously, it’s very hard to choose.
But for the moment I’ll go with either “Welcome to the Jungle”, Guns n’ Roses or Ryan Adams version of “Wonderwall”
May 30th, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
In reference to Maggot’s link about the Hedgehog assault case – check out the NZ Herald website, their article as more detail than the one on Yahoo. I work in the building that the NZ Herald is published in and as I got into the lift this morning I found that they had gone with that on the front page as the lead story of the day. And then we wonder why some people assume us Kiwis are backward hicks…
May 30th, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
Assault with a deadly hedgehog is newsworthy though, how can you say otherwise?
MB – will listen (reluctantly) when the chidren aren’t around. How can you hate Freebird? How can anyone hate Freebird? ;)
May 30th, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Sure it’s newsworthy, but the lead story on the front page? This week the Prime Minister apologised to Vietnam Vets for the way they were treated after they returned home from their tour of duty (they weren’t eligble for war pensions and their suffering from Agent Orange was never acknowledged), and the story was relegated to page 5. Get a hedgehog thrown at you? You’re going on the front page, my son…
May 30th, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
It’s interesting how many countries were affected by Viet Nam – I saw a surprising and excellent documentary on Irish soldiers who fought there too.
May 30th, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/03/23/craigslist.space/index.html
enough said
May 30th, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
Let’s Go Outside by George Michael. Or anything by Creed. They’re great.
May 30th, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
Lionel Richie – Hello!
May 30th, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
You are all wrong. The correctanswer is Mr Tambourine Man by BD. No question.
May 30th, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
Nonny, as my daughter would say:
Lionel Richie???
Like … hell-O ??
May 30th, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
If your daughter can say that you must be old!!
I think the lyrics are suitable for outta spacers anyway.
May 30th, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
“Is there Life on Mars?” – Bowie. Best to be direct and ask a question of them, I think.
May 30th, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
They might play with our heads by just answering “No.”
May 30th, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
Little Wing by Hendrix, Danza Espanola No.5 (emm mebbe not) or Pretty Little Ditty by the Chilis (emm mebbe not)..
But you couldn’t really know whether any alien would understand or like any musical works. I mean, I don’t really understand the allure of traditional Japanese singing, which japs think is beautiful, so how can we expect anyone else to get our music, especially an alien completely unknowing of human life..
Brain hurts
May 30th, 2008 @ 5:15 pm
“The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)” – The cheeky girls
May 30th, 2008 @ 5:21 pm
Any alien who crash lands on dollier and takes a stroll around would probably be impressed by nothing considering he’s the one who travelled through space.
BUT he if he took a walk through Stephen’s Green today, he’d be well impressed with all the lovely ladies on this fine day.
May 30th, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
I was a little girl at the time, and therefore I would cry at the end of the Hulk. Seeing Dr. Banner walk that lonely road yet again with that music haunting you in the background. Oh who am I kidding-I’d still cry today if I heard it.
May 30th, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
Ghost Riders in the Sky!
May 30th, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
“I was a little girl at the time, and therefore I would cry at the end of the Hulk.”
Sob. If I ever have a little daughter, she’ll have me under her spell forever.
May 30th, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
Em, maybe, you big softy, maybe not…
http://infantasia.blogspot.com/2008/04/evil-pirate-privates.html
May 30th, 2008 @ 6:22 pm
HA! Jesus, trick is not to let her know the about the PARTS being daddy’s sore place.
May 30th, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
Two words The Simpsons. Best to show them classic episodes that Conan O’Brien had a hand in, like humans I doubt they’ll find funny/understand the new shite.
May 30th, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
That sounds terrible – don’t touch Daddy’s sore place.. what child could resist that?
May 30th, 2008 @ 8:55 pm
Shouldn’t that have read if aliens came down to earth and surveyed their planet ? anyway they’d be very impressed with my belief of their ownership of this planet ;) Mundy and Sharon Shannon’s version of Galway Girl might just elicit a toes tapping or three.
May 30th, 2008 @ 9:03 pm
Nonny….Lionel richie?!?! wtf!
I prefer his work with his daughter Matitsa :)
May 30th, 2008 @ 10:06 pm
looking out my backdoor – creedence.
would make me happy at a funeral.
May 30th, 2008 @ 11:59 pm
Funny lol
happyhour_02@msn.com
May 31st, 2008 @ 12:18 am
sheena feena fall, what else?
up the republic!!!
May 31st, 2008 @ 12:43 am
“Anything by David Gray”
Hey Beef boy. You left out “is fucking shite” at the end of that.
David Beige he should called.
May 31st, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
Do you want your old lobby washed down?
June 2nd, 2008 @ 6:28 am
The Opera Lucia di Lammermmor-il dolce suono, compliments of the Fifth element.
June 2nd, 2008 @ 8:11 am
‘My Sharona’ by The Knack.
That’s pure gold.
June 3rd, 2008 @ 4:34 am
Marty,
thanks so much for the reminder ;P
…I’ve spent years trying to forget That song ;)