Map of the World (Michael Gray)

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  • (Posted 2011-07-09)  CPDL #23857:   
Editor: Michael Gray (submitted 2011-07-09).   Score information: Letter (landscape), 34 pages, 3.3 MB   Copyright: CC BY NC ND
Edition notes: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

General Information

Title: Map of the World
Composer: Michael Gray

Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: SecularCantata Geographica

Language: English
Instruments: Piano

First published: 2011
Description: 

External websites:

Original text and translations

English.png English text

From here it’s a bird’s eye view of a lovely Earth
A patchwork quilt on the crib of humanity’s birth
Even if the politics try to change ev’ry name
The dirt, the oceans, and air still stay the same

We were getting pretty tired of starring at the U.S.S.R.
Tel Aviv, Kyoto and Bonn still had their star
The British in Rhodesia didn’t know their days were done
And the French were still selling crepes in the streets of Saigon

Not like our brand new beautiful, revis’d, updated, laminated
Map of the world.

The powers that be left us tools that were top of the line
For the turn of the century …eighteen ninety nine
Oh, Mister Grillo, we owe it all to you
For giving our classroom a modern point of view

Thank you, Mister Grillo for our
Map of the world.

The bus’nesses in Hong Kong still had a London lease
Arabs and Israellies weren’t even thinking peace
The U.S. had a Philippine knot that was still firmly tied
And Germany had always been unified

Rearrange something strange on our
Map of the world

The map we used to have had its old world charm
And they probably thought that it wouldn’t do us any harm
The government can still drop bombs with integrity
Just a few stray hits like a Chinese embassy

Ev'rybody need a
Map of the world

A test on the old map names we could pass with ease
Since half the globe was Spanish, French, or Portuguese
The sun hadn’t set on the British Empire’s mark
‘Cause God couldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark

Now the countries’ names are decided by lingua philes
And they must be playing Scrabble with alien tiles
Kyrgystan, Somalia, Myanmar are pieces of cake
But the other ones are in a code that we won’t ever break

Right across the border on our
Map of the world
We’re just simply neighbors on our
Map of the world
Shouldn’t we be happy with our
Map of the world

The world keeps shifting; who can keep track of it all?
I wonder which map hangs on the President’s wall.
We’re not complaining though it might be a little too late
By next year it’ll already be out of date

It’s a glorious sight in room one-oh-two
Proving what a little bit of well plac’d funding can do…

So wave your hats and clap for our
Map of the world
Ev’rybody stand up, clap for our
Map of the world