They Have the Music and Lyrics… Can You Make It Happen? December 7, 2008

They Have the Music and Lyrics… Can You Make It Happen?

By Guest Contributor
December 7, 2008

Q Transmissions, a skeptical radio talk show based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is having a contest.

They have the lyrics to an Atheist Anthem that MissPrism wrote — sung to the tune of The Major-General’s Song. Here’s the first stanza:

I don’t believe in Jahweh, Buddha, Ganesh, Zeus or Allah
And I don’t believe in Limbo, Hades, Heaven or Valhalla
I don’t believe in Brahma, karma, Rama, Thor or Jupiter
I’ve studied both the Testaments but can’t say which is stupider

What they need is someone to sing it!

Perform your best rendition of the song. YouTube, your blackberry, your laptop… it doesn’t matter how you do it as long as we hear your lovely (or not so lovely) voice serenading us.

If you have the best rendition, a prize could be yours.

I’ll throw in a Friendly Atheist wristband if the winner comes from this site! (You *know* you’re even more enticed now.)

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What Are Your Thoughts?leave a comment
  • Autumnal Harvest

    Really? You don’t believe in Buddha? It’s certainly debatable, but it’s more likely than not that he existed. I don’t believe in his teachings, though.

  • Jen

    Somehow, I feel that even if the atheists were to gather and want to sing together, this would be a song sung like the “Star Spangled Banner”- mumbled, with all the notes missed. It’d be fun, though! I love the Pirates of Penzance.

  • It’d be hard to sing; every line is missing a syllable.

    The original is 16 syllables per line (“I am the very model of a modern Major-General”), and the parody is 15. I keep trying to sing it and sort of gasping at the missing bit.

    I like the sentiment, though.

  • Cobwebs,

    That’s only part of the problem. It’s the meter that kills it. Gilbert & Sullivan’s Major General song is iambic. This just isn’t.

  • Oh, come on now – I, a vegan atheist, wanted to sing this, but it includes that line about eating lobster, cows, and pigs. I’d like the writers of the lyrics to know that just because some religions proscribe things for nonsensical reasons doesn’t mean there’s no rational reason that some would be against the same actions.