So you’re sitting on your futon and your thoughts turn to cosmology And how we’re tiny specks adrift in space And you realize where you sit is really just the start of it As your mind begins to wander from this place For your futon’s in a room and the room is in a house Or an apartment on a block in a neighborhood And whether homely, plain or pretty, it’s in a town or in a city Just like you’d expect a neighborhood would And at this time I should relate The city’s in a county and the county’s in a state The state’s in a country and the country’s in a continent no matter how you scan it And I’d like to make it clear that the continent's in a hemisphere Which is part of a bigger sphere we call a planet And you're sitting on your futon And your thoughts turn to cosmology Our planet’s in a system which revolves around a star Called the Sun which is 93 million miles away And the Sun’s in the outer arm of a spiral-shaped galaxy of stars Which the ancient Greeks named the Milky Way And the Milky Way is part of something called the Local Group Which contains our galaxy and roughly 30 more And the Local Group is part of the Virgo Supercluster Containing galaxies, nebulae and quasars And everywhere in the universe you look, in every cranny and every nook Are superclusters brimming with billions of stars And you're sitting on your futon And your thoughts turn to cosmology Now here’s the trippy part, the part that may just blow your mind, For stars are made of elements, as you may know The elements found in stars are in birds and trees and cars As well as rocks and air and Grandma’s cookie dough Yes, the building blocks of the sun are everywhere and in everyone Including you and me and your crazy Uncle Leon They have names that are quite common like helium, hydrogen and carbon And stranger ones like beryllium and neon But to see the magic of these stars you needn’t travel oh so far Or blast off in your custom-made spaceship For the elements found in space can even be found inside this place And in your futon where you sit there eating corn chips And you're sitting on your futon And your thoughts turn to cosmology And you sit there on your futon And you wonder, what exactly is a futon?

Well they say there are some folks who are afraid of the dark But to me that just don't seem right Cause every time I go star gazing on a dark, dark night Howdy Doody! I'm afraid of the light! (chorus) Yes, I'm afraid Of the light 'Cause I can't see the stars at night Yes, I sing with derision 'Cause you're ruining my night vision Turn off that dat gum light! So we went to the desert on a dark, dark night, To sing some songs and watch a meteor shower But some feller brought his floodlights and a flat screen TV And it shined like a daylight hour (repeat chorus) So we went to the mountains just as high as we could Took our telescopes and star maps too But in the dark of the night came a bright shining light We were blinded and confused Was it a spaceship of some kind that had found us there In the dark, ten thousand feet high? But soon we could see, it was a ten-ton SUV The window rolled down And we squinted at the sound As a voice from inside said: "Excuse me, could y'all tell me the way to Legoland?" TURN OFF THAT DAT GUM LIGHT! (repeat chorus to end)

These are highly reliable boots These are highly reliable boots Got the gravel in the tread And the watertight thread These are highly reliable boots Traveling down into an unconformity My tracks are dwarfed by the rock’s enormity The foothold’s crumbling—careful what you put there That’s why you’ll find me in reliable footwear These are highly reliable boots These are highly reliable boots Got the gravel in the tread And the watertight thread These are highly reliable boots When I go spelunking down into a cave I need to get some traction to avoid a close shave Crumbling limestone, dangerous stalagmites Strong and sturdy boots are as vital as my Maglite These are highly reliable boots These are highly reliable boots Got the gravel in the tread And the watertight thread These are highly reliable boots Chipping out isotopes deep within a syncline If I lose my balance on that dangerous incline At least I know these boots have a grip that is tenacious Allowing me to date this rock in the late Cretaceous These are highly reliable boots These are highly reliable boots Got the gravel in the tread And the watertight thread These are highly reliable boots Look in to the tread—this is dirt of great disntinction Here’s a little pebble from the KT Extinction Cruising through the world with the Carbon 14 It’s all in the tread, a geologic time machine These are highly reliable boots These are highly reliable boots Got the gravel in the tread And the watertight thread These are highly reliable boots

Every time you look into the sky at night and see a planet You will notice you can trace the planets in a line Called the ecliptic plane The ecliptic plane It's sort of like concentric hula hoops around the Sun And every hula hoop's an orbit at about the same level The ecliptic plane The ecliptic plane (chorus) Around the Sun we go All along the ecliptic plane Round and round we float All along the ecliptic plane Along the ecliptic plane Hey now, here we go Every time you look into the sky at night and see a planet You will notice you can trace the planets in a line Called the ecliptic plane The ecliptic plane Every now and then the Moon will pass across the plane Thus creating an eclipse--that's how it got its name The ecliptic plane (repeat chorus) The ecliptic plane

In the year of 1910 there was a scientist Whose name was Alfred Wegener He noticed that the continents looked just like Pieces of a broken puzzle By 1915 he called it Continental Drift It caused a rift With his fellow scientists (who sang) Ha! Ha! Alfred Wegener! You are a crazy man! Ha! Ha! Alfred Wegener! You are a crazy little man! They reminded him he had no proof For how or why the continents could do this And until you show just how or why You merely have one interesting hypothesis Until this evidence we see You don't have a theory Ha! Ha! Alfred Wegener! You are a crazy man! Ha! Ha! Alfred Wegener! You are a crazy little man! In the year of 1930 On an expedition to Greenland Wegener got caught in a blizzard When they finally found him It was much, oh much too late And they buried him in an icy mausoleum 30 years after he died A new idea came to light Plate Tectonics, Plate Tectonics It changed the way geologists saw the world And brought Continental Drift back to life Now everybody sings: Yee haw! Alfred Wegener! You are a brilliant man! Yee haw! Alfred Wegener! You are a brilliant, brilliant man! Continental Drift! Alfred Wegener's theory! Continental Drift! Alfred Wegener's theory! Continental Drift! Alfred Wegener's theory! Continental Drift! Alfred Wegener's brilliant theory!

Asteroid, asteroid Hope we don’t sound paranoid But you are gainfully employed In wiping out the human race Asteroid, asteroid You could make us null and void If your orbit can’t avoid Colliding with the planet Earth All throughout our his’try You’ve earned a rare distinction You’ve got a nasty habit Of causing mass extinction Asteroid, asteroid Can’t blame us if we’re annoyed On behalf of every anthropoid We wish you’d change your course Asteroid, asteroid We can take your picture with a Polaroid But the question is: can we avoid You wiping out the human race? All throughout our hist’ry You’ve earned a rare distinction You’ve got a nasty habit Of causing mass extinction Extinction, extinction K.T. Extinction Extinction, extinction Permian-Triassic extinction Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, ahhhhhhh Asteroid, asteroid Hope we don’t sound paranoid But you are gainfully employed In wiping out the human race

About 150 million years ago, there was a water molecule named Conrad. Before I go any further, please keep in mind that water molecules do not have human-like qualities and therefore most certainly do not have names like Conrad. But for the sake of this story I ask that you imagine, just this once, that there was, indeed, a water molecule whose name was Conrad. Conrad sat in a small pool of muddy water. He had fallen during a rainstorm from the sky and had not yet evaporated. At approximately this time, a brachiosaur lumbered over to the small pool of water, craned down its long neck, and drank generously from the puddle. Conrad soon found himself in the dark insides of the brachiosaur. “This must be an esophagus,” said Conrad. “I’ve always wanted to see an esophagus.” I would like to remind you that Conrad could not speak or think, and therefore the idea that he would even know the word “esophagus” is highly improbable, but again, for the sake of the story I ask that you set your objections aside. Conrad soon found himself traveling farther down into the brachiosaur’s stomach. “This must be a stomach,” said Conrad. “I’ve always wanted to see a stomach.” Conrad traveled down even farther. Here’s where things get speculative. There are no fossilized remains of a brachiosaur’s digestive tract, so when I use the word “kidney” in the next part of the story, please understand that we do not know if brachiosaurs had kidneys. Next, Conrad traveled down into the brachiosaur’s kidney. “This must be a kidney,” said Conrad. “I’ve always wanted to see a kidney.” Conrad soon found himself in a large bladder with many other water molecules, and lots of sediment. “This must be a bladder,” said Conrad. “I’ve always wanted to see a bladder.” From there Conrad traveled down into the brachiosaur’s urinary tract. “This must be a urinary tract,” said Conrad. “I’ve always wanted to see a urinary tract.” Suddenly, without warning, Conrad felt himself falling rapidly as if in a violent stream and fell straight down to the ground with a massive splash. 150 Million Years Later Two youngsters, a young lady and a young man, were in line at the drinking fountain. It was the young man’s turn to drink and recess was almost over. “Hurry up!” said the young lady. But the young man said, “I’m going to keep drinking and drinking until the bell rings and you won’t get anything! Haha.” The young lady was thirsty and knew that the young man would drink water until the bell rang just for the satisfaction of knowing that she was thirsty and wouldn’t be able to have a drink. He was that kind of young man. But then she remembered what they had learned in science class earlier that day. “Fine,” the young lady said to the young man. “Go ahead. The longer you drink the more chance you have of drinking dinosaur urine.” “What?” the young man exclaimed. “Weren’t you paying attention in class?” the young lady replied. “At some point, if you drink enough water, you’re bound to drink some that was swallowed by dinosaurs, and urinated out by them too.” The young man spit out the water that was in his mouth, stared at the young lady with a look of horrified disbelief, and walked away. The young lady smiled, for she knew that when water molecules are evaporated they are naturally purified. The young lady drank to her heart’s delight with just enough time to quench her thirst before the bell rang. But she had no idea that as she was quenching her thirst, she ended up swallowing Conrad. Conrad traveled down the young lady’s throat and said, “This must be an esophagus. I’ve always wanted to see an esophagus!”