Rewritting The Galaxy Song (Monty Python)

The Galaxy Song, from Monty Python’s "The Meaning of Life," is basically this crazy, funny song about how tiny and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of the universe. It’s like, we’re spinning around on this little ball, which is flying around the sun, which is itself just one star among billions in our galaxy, and our galaxy is just one of countless others. It’s thought provoking, and the song makes it aesthetic and memorable.

Cover art for Galaxy Song by the artist Monty Python.

Here it goes…

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid
Obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you’ve had
Quite enough
Just remember that you’re standing
On a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second.

(Earth’s rotational speed varies by latitude. Earth’s orbital speed is closer to 67,000 mph.)

So it’s reckoned
The sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at four hundred thousand miles an hour
In the galaxy we call the Milky Way
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle, six thousand light years thick

(Estimates vary, but the central bulge is likely thicker.)

But out by us, it’s just a thousand light years wide
We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go 'round every two hundred million years

(Our solar system’s speed around the galactic center is closer to 514,000 mph. Our galactic year is closer to 230 million years.)

And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions

(Recent estimates suggest there are at least 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.)

In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, of the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space
'Cause it’s bugger all down here on Earth.

To make the Galaxy Song sciency, we need to update the numbers with what we actually know now. Things like how fast Earth spins, how fast we orbit, and how quickly the solar system moves around the Milky Way need to be accurate. We also need to get the size of the galaxy right, especially that central bulge, and there are way more galaxies out there than they thought back then. We should also nail down the speed of light and how long it takes us to orbit the galactic center. The tricky part? Making sure it still sounds fun and not just like a boring science lesson.

Here goes the song…

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid,
Obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you’ve had
Quite enough,
Just remember that you’re standing
On a planet that’s evolving,
And revolving at a thousand miles an hour,
That’s orbiting at eighteen and a half miles a second,
So it’s reckoned,
The sun, that is the source of all our power,
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In an outer spiral arm, at four hundred and fifty thousand miles an hour,
In the galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars,
It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side,
It bulges in the middle, twenty thousand light-years thick,
But out by us, it’s just a thousand light-years wide.
We’re twenty-seven thousand light-years from galactic central point,
We go 'round every two hundred and thirty million years,

And our galaxy is only one of two trillion
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whizz,
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Six hundred and seventy million miles an hour,
And that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause it’s bugger all down here on Earth.

Now it is even more scientifically accurate and beautiful. 😍