Song title: I Don’t Know what you Learned at Richmond, but it seems like it was Music and Nothing Else.
Music by: Phil McNulty
Lyrics by: Phil McNulty
Artists: Rainbow Orbit
Listen to ‘Richmond’ here:
Rainbow Orbit: Celebrating 18 years of recording pop tracks in 2021, whilst also understanding the importance of keeping a day job. Because Spotify is never going to make you rich.
Richmond (the full title was part of a rant used by one of my students some years ago; it was a very specific “burn” and it kept me amused for days. But it’s rather impractical to write more than once.) was written in 2016, my observations on what is important to us, as citizens of the Earth. Are our priorities right? If there are other lifeforms out there watching us, what exactly are they thinking about our massive inequalities, the pursuit of corruption and those fool Kardashians?
“Richmond” was entered into the Norwegian National Selection process for Eurovision 2017, where of course it did not proceed. 5 years down the road, it has been slightly reworked; with a string section boost and a different percussive arrangement.
I Don’t Know what you Learned at Richmond, but it seems like it was Music and Nothing Else (aka Richmond)
Are we alone here in the universe? I don’t know.
But if we’re not, what do they think of us?
Are they looking down on us and laughing?
Are they waiting, hoping to take over?
What do we know?
What did we learn?
Where will we go?
How could we know?
We have so much we should be proud of,
we’ve eliminated multiple diseases with technologies
And still, we blame the have nots for solutions, that they can not hope to access.
We have so much talent, expertise at our disposal
We’ve got scientists and artists and a million visionaries
But the money’s thrown at people to control, manipulate and deceive.
And fame’s a drug that’s easy to achieve.
Everybody’s got a camera.
Set up an account and demonstrate some bad behaviour.
Surgeries and love affairs, why can’t we turn off the TV?
What do we know?
What did we learn?
Where will we go?
How could we know?
We were born barbarians, pretending to be civilized.
We can all be friendly til someone upsets our ways,
then we find a knife, a gun, a baseball bat,
To teach the validity of our opinion.
What do we know?
What did we learn?
Where will we go?
How could we know?
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