Einstein was a surfer

Um, WHY have I never heard of this song before? Did it do the blog rounds last year when it was released and I wasn't paying attention? Having missed this song, I feel... inadequate. Not that the song is great, but conceptually... AMAZING!


And the photo Jimmy Buffet is talking about is real and here it is!


And here is a bonus Einstein sporting shorts and a devil may care attitude!


Now, LYRICS!! With the obviously winning lines being 'Cause the universe was his home break/And we’re still all paddlin’ out'.

****

There’s a photo of a genius
Standing by the ocean
In a pea coat and cool hat
In 1943

On a beach in Santa Barbara
He’s looking quite contented
His world is only matter
And energy

Past the Channel Islands
Out into the cosmos
There are worlds in motion
That only he can see

He’s smiling as he’s thinking
The harbor lights are blinking
He’s the smartest cookie
Ever was, ever will be

Einstein was a surfer
There really is no doubt
Cause the universe was his home break
And we’re still all paddlin’ out

On an iceberg off Newfoundland
A lyric sits half-frozen
Waiting for a comet
To crash into the sea

It’s drifting towards the tropics
And melting into topics
Fills the sea with answers
That have always worked for me

Bass notes from the chasm
At speeds that we can’t fathom
Music is the language
Of the near and distant stars

Black holes humming b-flat
Heard only by street cats
Astronauts in orbit
And singers in the bars

Einstein was a sailor
With a universal song
His sails were tight, his course was right
So let’s just all cruise along

Order to disorder
It’s the way we all fly
Light speed is all you need
To pass the future by

There’s a YouTube of a genius
Gliding over liquid
Sultan of the short board
In two thousand and ten

He looks like Valentino
Moving like neutrinos
To the oceans in the heavens
Where no wave rider’s been

Einstein was a surfer
Who found the perfect break
Where the strings of time
Meet the final chime
It’s the path all surfers take

***

And since we're talking about Jimmy Buffet (and since my unsuccessfully searching for it on iTunes was the catalyst for this post, and since I live alone and am about to play and dance about my house anyway), it would be remiss of me not to play this song:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Laura Crane has skin in the game: a surf story in five parts*

Image
*The title of this essay is inspired by  Kylie Maslen's recent article about women's sport, 'Skin in the Game '. The essay itself is dedicated to my friends in the Institute of Women's Surfing (Europe), with my thanks for sharing your stories and friendship and resources. I. Oh hey, surf media! Surf media is such an interesting world. I used to consume it voraciously, reading everything I could find - every book, magazine, website, and blog. I was trying to understand it, to understand the world it was describing, to see the patterns and themes as well as the points of difference and resistance. I wasn't out to create a typology or anything like that, but to get my head around what it is that we say to ourselves as writers, editors, photographers and readers. I wanted to know who was talking and who might be reading and to know what was missing from these stories; to find the gaps. It didn't take long for me to turn away from mainstream print magazin...
Read more

I hate Noosa Heads and Surfing*

Image
Today, this image came up on my facebook news feed, and it made me smile. Of course, images on facebook news feeds rarely come with any real contextual information, so I trawled around the net a bit and found some more information... This is an album cover for the ' Warumpi Band ', from the settlement of Papunya in Australia's Northern Territory**. It seems that this image was the cover for an EP of their song 'Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out of Jail)', which was the first ever rock song recorded in an indigenous language. It's a pretty jumping song. It's worth noting that on the Warumpi Band's wikipedia entry , the list of their musical genres includes 'anachro-rock'. *On a personal level, this is absolutely not true. I love Noosa Heads. And surfing! **Update: I had read that the man wearing the t-shirt is singer of the Warumpi Bane, George Burarrawanga. As Dave commented below however, it isn't George. Thanks for your comment, Dave!
Read more