The Philosopher’s song
by cricketjeff on March 22, 2009. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
We asked Deep Thought the answer and it told us forty two;
Which didn’t mean a lot to us and so it gave us you.
Your planet’s a computer that’s designed to tell us what
The answer is supposed to mean, and also what it’s not.
Then Vogons came and blasted Earth, before the job was done,
Four billion years of complex sums were not a lot of fun.
So if you’d simply give your brains, they don’t mean much to you,
We’ll mince them up to find out what was meant by forty two.
When Slartibartfarst built the coasts it cost a lot of dough,
We’d rather not spend that again so please, just let us know;
It can’t be hard as you were there when all was nearly through,
What is the question that will give the answer forty two?
Is Arthur Dent the only man who has it in his head?
He won’t give us permission, says he’d rather not be dead,
And anyway he’s run away and can’t be found by us,
For just a little monkey brain he makes a lot of fuss.
So here’s a final plea from us, to every one of you;
Just send us in the question to the answer forty two.
If you would do this little thing it would be very nice,
And we would be so grateful
sent,
with thanks,
from all the mice!
Author notes
If this poem means absolutely nothing to you, you either aren’t a dolphin, a
mouse or a fan of the late Douglas Adams’s magnum opus, his trilogy in five
parts, “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”
(Or the radio series that started it, the TV series derived from that, or the
film they made a couple of years ago)
English