Just to give the whole thing a little perspective . . .

[polaris93]

“It’s a Long Way from Amphioxus.” In A Prairie Home Companion Folk-Song Book (collected by John and Marsha Pankake, with introduction by Garrisson Keillor. New York: Viking, 1988), pp. 68-69. Uranus may rule modern objective science and its corollary, high energy, super-fast technology, but it is only the wisdom of Neptune that enables us to see all them great achievements in perspective - the perspective they deserve. “It’s a Long Way from Amphioxus,” originally presented on the Garrisson Keillor’s radio show, The Prairie Home Companion, goes a long, long way in that direction . . . :-P

A fish-like thing appeared among the Annelids one day

It hadn’t any parapods or setas to display

It hadn’t any eyes or jaws or ventral nervous cord

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

Goodbye, fins and gill slits

Hello, lungs and hair

It’s along, long way from Amphioxus

But we come from there.

It wasn’t much to look at and it scarce knew how to swim

And Nereid was very sure it didn’t come from him

The Mollusks wouldn’t own it and the Arthropods got sore

So the poor thing had to burrow in the sand along the shore.

Chorus

It wiggled in the sand before a crab could nip its tail

It said, “Gill slits and myotomes are all of no avail

I’ve grown some metapleural folds and sport and oral hood

But all these fine new characters don’t do me any good.”

Chorus

It sulked awhile down in the sand without a bit of pep

Then stiffened up its notochord and said, “I’ll beat ’em yet,

I’ve got more possibilities within my slender frame

Than all these proud invertebrates that treat me with such shame.”

Chorus

Its notochord shall grow into a chain of vertebrae

As fins its metapleural folds shall agitate the sea

Its tiny dorsal nervous tube shall form a mighty brain

And the vertebrates shall dominate the animal domain.

Chorus

(TUNE: “It’s a Long [, Long] Way to Tipperary,” 1912)