Filk: Poney's On the Moon

This was prompted by StainlessSteelFox nudging his readers for a final call for newsclipping ideas for the next chapter of Luna's Return Trajectory.

I don't post this directly to his blog post, because what follows is INTENSELY political and may not be something he wants included, or even on his blog comments.

In 1970, in direct response to the Apollo 11 moon landing, the poet Gil Scott-Heron brought out an album that included a poem, "Whitey's On the Moon." It's a good piece, a short piece, and well worth experiencing if you haven't already heard it as part of a documentary or period piece. (It's been used in both First Man and Lovecraft Country.) Long story short, every other line is some variant of, "Whitey's on the moon," while the rest of the poem is the (Black) poet describing the medical bills, jacked-up rents for slums, and general poverty he experiences in direct contrast.

At the time a lot of people were pointing out that Project Apollo was a truly massive amount of money to be spent on what amounted to a dick-measuring contest with the Soviet Union. (Some of the astronauts, like Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman, thought that was the ONLY purpose to space flight- "When it becomes all about science, I'm out.") That money, they said, could have been used on Earth to end poverty and do other, more lasting things.

I don't quite agree with that. The greedy slumlord, the doctor, and the boss who squeeze the speaker in "Whitey On the Moon" would still be there with or without Project Apollo. More to the point, the political willpower to use government regulation and spending to end racial disparities and eliminate poverty would NOT have magically appeared had Project Apollo never happened. The money was there- Johnson's Great Society had just been enacted, and a top-tier tax cut enacted as part of the Kennedy legacy could have been rolled back to balance the budget. But too many white Americans believed that poverty was the fault of the poor, that government aid would make them dependent, that it wasn't their problem, etc. Thus, when Apollo budgets did get cut, the money went elsewhere, to the military or to tax cuts- not to the needy, who ALSO got budget cuts.

The injustice Scott-Heron expressed in "Whitey On the Moon" was (and still is) very real. But the solution is not to stop doing other things while we try to find support for helping people in pain. If we do that, the odds are nothing whatever will get done at all. We can, and should in my opinion, do it all, because we are all in this together.

But my thought is: how would that poem have changed in a world where Neil and Buzz encounter a pony princess- and the world knows all about it?

(This isn't really a filk, since most of the words are the same- this is, again, how the poem might have come out with the same social pressures, plus a pony princess in the headlines.)

A rat done bit my sister Nell
With a pony on the moon
Her face and arms began to swell
And a pony's on the moon
I can't pay no doctor bills
But a pony's on the moon
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still
While a pony's on the moon

Junkies sleep in my street light
But a pony's on the moon
The cops stop me most every night
And a pony's on the moon
They say I'm lucky I'm not shot
Like the pony on the moon?
For being someplace I ought not
Like the pony on the moon

Look at my pay stub, what the heck
Taxes taking my whole damn check
So they can bring that pony back-
Can't they see that pony's BLACK??

The man just upped my rent last night
Cause pony's on the moon
No hot water, no toilets, no lights
Just like pony on the moon
Was all that money I made last year
To save pony on the moon?
How come I ain't got no money here?
Hmm! Pony's on the moon
Since my money's up in space
With pony on the moon
I think I'll offer to switch my place
(You can HAVE it!)
With that pony on the moon

Comments

[steampvnc1880]

That was very interesting. Thank you for telling me about the poem, Frank Borman, etc.