| The Green Hills Of Earth |
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| short stories by robert a. heinlein | |
| green hills of earth, the | |
| 1947 short stories | |
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PLOT This is the poignant story of "Noisy" Rhysling, the blind space-going songwriter whose poetic skills rival Rudyard Kipling 's. Heinlein (himself a retired naval officer) spins a yarn about a radation-blinded spaceship engineer criscrossing the Solar System writing and singing some of the best lyrics in science fiction. In a fine display of writing skill, the spaceship and crew feel as real to the reader as a contemporary tramp steamer. Henilein credited the title of the song to the short story '' Shambleau '' by C. L. Moore . In the story Moore's character, a spacefaring smuggler named Northwest Smith hums the tune of ''The Green Hills of Earth''. THE SONGS Henilein wrote several fragments and one full stanza for the song.
The fragments have been filled out and additional stanzas added by the Filk community. The song's meter allows it to be sung to a number of popular tunes including; Amazing Grace , The House Of The Rising Sun , Ode To Joy , Clementine , and The Marine Corps Hymn . The most popular tune used at conventions is the theme from Gilligan's Island . The story features several other partial songe and a number of titles attributed to Rhysling. These are:
REFERENCES IN OTHER HEINLEIN WORKS Both the song "The Green Hills of Earth" and the character of Rhysling are mentioned in the novel '' Time Enough For Love ''. At an early point in the novel, Lazarus Long bemoans the fact that he cannot "pray for one last landing" because the "Green Hills of Earth" have deteriorated and the planet is uninhabitable. Later, Lazarus tells the story of a very blind accordian player who temporarily takes residence in a bordello that he owned on Mars almost two thousand years ago. Although Heinlein readers can easily recognize the character, Lazarus himself does not "recall his right name, if he had one." The song "The Green Hills of Earth" is referenced thrice in '' Farmer In The Sky '' as a piece that Bill Lermer plays on his own accordian. Later in that same novel, Lermer is trying to identify a quote ("I have lived and worked with men") and guesses that it was written by Rhysling or Kipling. ADAPTATIONS The story was adapted for the Dimension X radio series (episode 10). It also appeared on X Minus One and CBS Radio Workshop. The song ''The Green Hills of Earth'' which appears in the story was also used in the British radio series, Journey Into Space . The television series '' Out There '' ( 1950s ) had a version of the story. REAL LIFE In real-life space travel, references to Rhysling and "the green hills of Earth" were made by astronauts in the Apollo program. Rhysling has been given another kind of recognition: the Speculative Fiction Poetry Rhysling Awards . |
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