Article 39724 of talk.origins:
From: welsberr@orca.tamu.edu (Wesley Elsberry)
Subject: Re: School song (was Re: Ras Mikael Enoch: It's all our fault!
Date: 19 Jul 1994 05:34:05 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University
Lines: 130
Message-ID: <30fokd$5et@news.tamu.edu>
References:  <304rdd$qrb@panix2.panix.com> <30aave$1om@clam.hi.com> <30ffdp$fa8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.194.193.1

In article <30ffdp$fa8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, Seanna Watson  wrote:
>In article <30aave$1om@clam.hi.com>, David Wright  wrote:
>>
>>  -- David (Chris) Wright, Assoc Prof of CS, U of E
>>     Babe Ruth Chair of Designated Hitting
>>     Hail to thee, O U of E...(well, it's a start on a school song)
>>
>Whaddya mean, start on a school song?  We already have 2!  
>
>1) Song of Anomalocaris (of which, to my shame I can not remember
>the author, or much of the content, but I'm sure someone like
>Wesley Elsberry can supply this vital information)

Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint.  

(sound of electronic pages flipping...)

Aha, here's the darned thing.  (Which, by the way, isn't *quite*
about Anomalocaris, but what are a few diagnostic characters among
friends?)

[Quote]

From: jimba@waldo.West.Sun.COM (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Amphioxus song
Date: 11 May 1993 02:04:41 GMT
Organization: SunSoft Inc., Los Angeles, Ca.
Lines: 85

In article <1993May9.172805.17748@news.nd.edu> scharle@lukasiewicz.cc.nd.edu (scharle) writes:
>
>    I just heard a repeat of the Feb. 16, 1991 Garrison Keillor show,
>on which a biologist/folk-singer named Sam Hinton sang the Amphioxus
>Song, in which the chorus goes (to the melody of A Long Way to
>Tiperarry):
>
>       It's a long way from amphioxus
>       It's a long way to us
>       It's a long way from amphioxus
>       To the meanest human cuss
>       It's farewell to fins and gill-slits
>       And it's welcome lungs and hair
>       It's a long way from amphioxus
>       But we all came from there
> 
>    Does anyone know the verses, or can supply a source for this?

This is on "Sam Hinton Sings the Song of Men (All Sorts and Kinds)",
Folkway Records, FA2400, in the "SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGISTS" section.
The liner notes read:

"For some years this was practically the theme-song of the summer
students at the Woods Hole Biological Institution in Massachusetts; it
was made up by persons unknown back in the days when _amphioxus_ (now
technically known as _Branchiostoma_) was thought to resemble the
theoretical ancestor of all the vertebrate groups.  Nowadays [he's
writing in 1961], most systematic biologists agree that amphioxus is a
sideline, and that the sea-squirts and other ascidians are more like
our Great-Great-Great-to-the-Nth-power Grandparents.  It's still a
good song, though, and has a sort of cheerful optimism for the future
that we need today ....  I learned it when I was a freshman at Texas
A&M College, from Dr. Sewell H. Hopkins of the Zo Department, and I
shall never forget the deep feeling and fervor with which he used to
declaim it."  

[diagram omitted]


"It's a Long Way from Amphioxus"

Oh a fish-like thing appeared among the annelids one day
It hadn't any parapods nor setae to display
It hadn't any eyes or jaws or ventral nervous chord,
But it had a lot of gill slits and it had a notochord.

CHORUS:
It's a long way from amphioxus
It's a long way to us,
It's a long way from amphioxus
To the meanest human cuss.
Well, it's good-bye to fins and gill slits
And it's welcome lungs and hair,
It's a long, long way from amphioxus
But we all came from there.

It wasn't much to look at and it scarce knew how to swim,
And Nerius was very sure it hadn't come from him
The molluscs wouldn't own it and the arthropods got sore,
So the poor thing had to burrow in the sand along the shore.

(CHORUS)

He burrowed in the sand before a crab did nip his tail,
And he said, "Gill slits and myotomes are all to no avail,
I've grown some metoplural folds and sport an oral hood,
But all these fine new characters don't do me any good."

(CHORUS)

He sulked a while down in the sand without a bit of pep,
Then he stiffened up his notochord and said "I'll beat 'em yet,
Let 'em laugh and show their ignorance I don't mind their jeers,
Just wait until they see me in 100 million years!"

(CHORUS)

My notochord shall change into a chain of vertebrae,
And as fins my metoplural folds shall agitate the sea
My tiny dorsal nervous chords shall be a mighty brain,
And the vertebrae shall dominate the animal domain."

--

Pretty neat song.  Now let's hear one about the theory of creationism ...


-- J Q B

[End quote]

Hope that helps...

Wesley

-- 
Wesley R. Elsberry                                welsberr@orca.tamu.edu 
7725 Francis Rd., Bryan, TX 77808   
Sysop, Central Neural System BBS, FidoNet 1:117/385 409-589-3338