The Green Hills of Earth
Encyclopedia
"The Green Hills of Earth" is a science fiction
short story
by Robert A. Heinlein
, and the title of a song, "The Green Hills of Earth", mentioned in several of his novels. One of his Future History
stories, the short story originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post
(February 8, 1947), and it was collected in The Green Hills of Earth
(and subsequently in The Past Through Tomorrow
).
's. Heinlein (himself a medically-retired U.S. naval
officer) spins a yarn about a radiation-blinded spaceship engineer crisscrossing the solar system
writing and singing songs. The story is presented as a magazine article.
Heinlein credited the title of the song, "The Green Hills of Earth", to the short story "Shambleau
" by C. L. Moore
(first published in 1933). In the story Moore's character, a spacefaring smuggler named Northwest Smith
hums the tune of "The Green Hills of Earth".
The events of the story concern the composition of the titular song. An aged Rhysling realizes that his death of old age is near, and hitchhikes on a spaceship headed to Earth so he can die and be buried where he was born. A malfunction threatens the ship with destruction, and Rhysling enters an irradiated area to perform repairs. Upon completing the repairs, he knows that he will soon die of radiation poisoning, and asks that they record his last song; he dies just moments after speaking the final, titular verse.
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
"; "Greensleeves
"; "The House of the Rising Sun
"; "The Rising of the Moon / Wearing of the Green"; Beethoven's "Ode to Joy
" (in his Ninth Symphony, fourth movement); "Oh My Darling, Clementine
"; "Semper Paratus"
; "The Marine Corps Hymn"; "The Yellow Rose of Texas
"; "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing
"; "Ghost Riders in the Sky"; "Acres of Clams"
, and the theme song from the TV show Gilligan's Island
.
The story features several other partial songs and a number of titles attributed to Rhysling. These are:
Several are described as sexually-explicit songs excluded from the official edition of Rhysling's works.
Four collections of Rhysling's works are mentioned. They are:
radio series (episode 10). It also appeared on the 7 July 1955 broadcast of the NBC Radio Network program X Minus One
. This version is told from the point of view of a friend of Rhysling's, and has Rhysling using a guitar instead of an accordion. As well as part of the title song (including the origin of a stanza about Venus
) using the tune "Rosin the Bow"
, two verses of "The Captain is a Father to His Crew" are sung, plus choral verses of "Jet Song", and a complete and particularly beautiful version of "The Grand Canal". The songs were composed and sung by Tom Glazer; Kenneth Williams played Rhysling as a backwoodsman from the Ozarks, an area not far from Heinlein's Missouri birthplace. The broadcast is available on the Old-Time Radio Classical Favorites release in the Smithsonian Institution
's Radio Spirits series.
Another adaptation aired on the CBS Radio Workshop on 21 July 1957. The script was by Draper Lewis and Robert Heinlein, produced and directed by Dee Engelbach, with music by Clark Harrington. Everett Sloane
played Rhysling, Berry Kroeger
narrated, and other cast members included Jackson Beck
, Danny Ocko, Ian Martin, Louis Volkman, and Bill Lipton.
The song "The Green Hills of Earth" which appears in the story was also used in the 11th episode of the third series of the British radio series, Journey into Space
.
The 1951–1952 television series Out There
(episode aired December 2, 1951) had a loosely-adapted version of the story (Rhysling is on a mission to the asteroids with a crew which includes a beautiful blonde biologist) which starred singer John Raitt
.
In 1977, actor Leonard Nimoy
recorded a dramatic reading of the story as the title track of an album for Caedmon Records. Nimoy narrated the song lyric excerpts as originally written by Heinlein without singing them.
, was originally going to quote the poem during the game, but copyright issues led the developers to switch to using Tennyson's "Ulysses
" in the final cut of the game.
In his book Learning the World
, Ken MacLeod
pays homage to Heinlein by having a spacecraft evade an attack with the background intercom saying "All Hands! Stand by!" ... "Free Falling!" and the chapter concluding with "And the lights below us fade."
In a first season episode of Lost In Space
(1965), Doctor Smith speaks fondly of his desire to return to "The Greek Hills of Earth."
In Harry Turtledove
's second novel of the Worldwar
series, Worldwar: Tilting the Balance (p. 95), British
Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
speaks of defending "the green hills of Earth" against an invasion by reptilian aliens.
In Galileo Was Right, episode 10 of From the Earth to the Moon(HBO TV miniseries), at 48:00 into the episode, Mission Control is overheard telling the crew of Apollo 15
"As the space-poet Rhysling would say, we're ready for you to 'come back again, to the homes of men, on the cool green hills of Earth' "
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
, and the title of a song, "The Green Hills of Earth", mentioned in several of his novels. One of his Future History
Future History
The Future History, by Robert A. Heinlein, describes a projected future of the human race from the middle of the 20th century through the early 23rd century. The term Future History was coined by John W. Campbell, Jr. in the February 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction...
stories, the short story originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
(February 8, 1947), and it was collected in The Green Hills of Earth
The Green Hills of Earth (short story collection)
The Green Hills of Earth is a collection of science fiction short stories by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1951, although it includes short stories published as early as 1941. The stories are part of Heinlein's Future History. The title story is the tale of an old space mariner reflecting upon...
(and subsequently in The Past Through Tomorrow
The Past Through Tomorrow
The Past Through Tomorrow is a collection of Robert A. Heinlein's Future History stories.Most of the stories are part of a larger storyline of a rapidly collapsing American sanity, followed by a theocratic dictatorship...
).
Plot summary
It is the story of "Noisy" Rhysling, the blind space-going songwriter whose poetic skills rival Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
's. Heinlein (himself a medically-retired U.S. naval
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
officer) spins a yarn about a radiation-blinded spaceship engineer crisscrossing the solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
writing and singing songs. The story is presented as a magazine article.
Heinlein credited the title of the song, "The Green Hills of Earth", to the short story "Shambleau
Shambleau
"Shambleau" is a short story by American science fiction and fantasy writer C. L. Moore. Though it was her first professional sale, it is her most famous story. It first appeared in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales and has been reprinted numerous times...
" by C. L. Moore
C. L. Moore
Catherine Lucille Moore was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, as C. L. Moore. She was one of the first women to write in the genre, and paved the way for many other female writers in speculative fiction....
(first published in 1933). In the story Moore's character, a spacefaring smuggler named Northwest Smith
Northwest Smith
Northwest Smith is a fictional character, and the hero of a series of stories by science fiction writer C. L. Moore.- Story setting :Smith is a spaceship pilot and smuggler who lives in an undisclosed future time when humanity has colonized the solar system....
hums the tune of "The Green Hills of Earth".
The events of the story concern the composition of the titular song. An aged Rhysling realizes that his death of old age is near, and hitchhikes on a spaceship headed to Earth so he can die and be buried where he was born. A malfunction threatens the ship with destruction, and Rhysling enters an irradiated area to perform repairs. Upon completing the repairs, he knows that he will soon die of radiation poisoning, and asks that they record his last song; he dies just moments after speaking the final, titular verse.
The songs
Heinlein wrote several fragments of lyrics and two full stanzas for the song.- — We rot in the molds of Venus, / We retch at her tainted breath. / Foul are her flooded jungles, / Crawling with unclean death. —
- — harsh bright soil of Luna —
- — Out ride the sons of Terra, / Far drives the thundering jet —
- — Saturn's rainbow rings —
- — the frozen night of Titan —
- We pray for one last landing/ On the globe that gave us birth/ Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies/ And the cool, green hills of Earth.
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
Amazing Grace
"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn with words written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton , published in 1779. With a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sins people commit and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God,...
"; "Greensleeves
Greensleeves
"Greensleeves" is a traditional English folk song and tune, a ground of the form called a romanesca.A broadside ballad by this name was registered at the London Stationer's Company in September 1580 as "A New Northern Dittye of the Lady Greene Sleeves". It then appears in the surviving A Handful of...
"; "The House of the Rising Sun
The House of the Rising Sun
"The House of the Rising Sun" is a folk song from the United States. Also called "House of the Rising Sun" or occasionally "Rising Sun Blues", it tells of a life gone wrong in New Orleans...
"; "The Rising of the Moon / Wearing of the Green"; Beethoven's "Ode to Joy
Ode to Joy
"Ode to Joy" is an ode written in 1785 by the German poet, playwright and historian Friedrich Schiller, enthusiastically celebrating the brotherhood and unity of all mankind...
" (in his Ninth Symphony, fourth movement); "Oh My Darling, Clementine
Oh My Darling, Clementine
Oh My Darling, Clementine is an American western folk ballad usually credited to Percy Montrose , although it is sometimes credited to Barker Bradford. The song is believed to have been based on another song called Down by the River Liv'd a Maiden by H. S...
"; "Semper Paratus"
Semper Paratus (march)
"Semper Paratus" is the official march of the United States Coast Guard.Semper Paratus is also the official Coast Guard motto...
; "The Marine Corps Hymn"; "The Yellow Rose of Texas
The Yellow Rose of Texas
"The Yellow Rose of Texas" is a traditional folk song. The original love song has become associated with the legend of how an indentured servant named Emily Morgan "helped win the battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle in the Texas Revolution."...
"; "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing
I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing
"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing " is a popular song which originated as a jingle in the groundbreaking 1971 "Hilltop" television commercial for Coca-Cola. The song, produced by Billy Davis and performed by The New Seekers, portrayed a positive message of hope and love sung by a multicultural...
"; "Ghost Riders in the Sky"; "Acres of Clams"
Old Settler's Song (Acres of Clams)
"Old Settler's Song " is a Northwest United States folk song written by Francis D. Henry around 1874. The lyrics are sung to the tune "Old Rosin the Beau." The song also goes by the names "Acres of Clams", “Lay of the Old Settler,” “Old Settler’s Song,” while the melody is known as “Rosin the...
, and the theme song from the TV show Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island is an American television series created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for...
.
The story features several other partial songs and a number of titles attributed to Rhysling. These are:
- The Grand Canal (10 lines)
- Jet Song (14 lines)
- The Skipper is a Father to His Crew (title only)
- Since the Pusher Met My Cousin (title only)
- That Red-Headed Venusburg Gal (title only)
- Keep Your Pants On, Skipper (title only)
- A Space Suit Built for Two (title only)
- Dark Star Passing (title only)
- Berenice's Hair (title only)
- Death Song of a Woods Colt (title only)
Several are described as sexually-explicit songs excluded from the official edition of Rhysling's works.
Four collections of Rhysling's works are mentioned. They are:
- Songs of the Spaceways (published the week he died)
- The Grand Canal, and other Poems
- High and Far
- UP SHIP!
Film, TV, radio/audio and theatrical adaptations
The story was adapted for the Dimension XDimension X
Dimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
radio series (episode 10). It also appeared on the 7 July 1955 broadcast of the NBC Radio Network program X Minus One
X Minus One
X Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
. This version is told from the point of view of a friend of Rhysling's, and has Rhysling using a guitar instead of an accordion. As well as part of the title song (including the origin of a stanza about Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
) using the tune "Rosin the Bow"
Old Settler's Song (Acres of Clams)
"Old Settler's Song " is a Northwest United States folk song written by Francis D. Henry around 1874. The lyrics are sung to the tune "Old Rosin the Beau." The song also goes by the names "Acres of Clams", “Lay of the Old Settler,” “Old Settler’s Song,” while the melody is known as “Rosin the...
, two verses of "The Captain is a Father to His Crew" are sung, plus choral verses of "Jet Song", and a complete and particularly beautiful version of "The Grand Canal". The songs were composed and sung by Tom Glazer; Kenneth Williams played Rhysling as a backwoodsman from the Ozarks, an area not far from Heinlein's Missouri birthplace. The broadcast is available on the Old-Time Radio Classical Favorites release in the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
's Radio Spirits series.
Another adaptation aired on the CBS Radio Workshop on 21 July 1957. The script was by Draper Lewis and Robert Heinlein, produced and directed by Dee Engelbach, with music by Clark Harrington. Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane was an American stage, film and television actor, songwriter, and theatre director.-Early life:...
played Rhysling, Berry Kroeger
Berry Kroeger
Berry Kroeger was an American film, television, and stage actor.Born in San Antonio, Texas, Kroeger got his acting start on radio as an announcer and actor, playing for a time The Falcon and The Shadow...
narrated, and other cast members included Jackson Beck
Jackson Beck
Jackson Beck was an American actor best known as the announcer on radio's The Adventures of Superman and the voice of Bluto in the Famous era Popeye theatrical shorts.-Career:...
, Danny Ocko, Ian Martin, Louis Volkman, and Bill Lipton.
The song "The Green Hills of Earth" which appears in the story was also used in the 11th episode of the third series of the British radio series, Journey into Space
Journey Into Space
Journey Into Space is a BBC Radio science fiction programme, written by BBC producer Charles Chilton. It was the last radio programme in the UK to attract a bigger evening audience than television...
.
The 1951–1952 television series Out There
Out There (1951 TV series)
Out There was a short-lived science fiction television program broadcast on Sundays at 6:00 p.m. EST on CBS Television from October 28, 1951 thru January 13, 1952. It only lasted twelve half-hour episodes before being cancelled. The awkward time slot may have led to its failure...
(episode aired December 2, 1951) had a loosely-adapted version of the story (Rhysling is on a mission to the asteroids with a crew which includes a beautiful blonde biologist) which starred singer John Raitt
John Raitt
John Emmett Raitt was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theater.-Early years:...
.
In 1977, actor Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
recorded a dramatic reading of the story as the title track of an album for Caedmon Records. Nimoy narrated the song lyric excerpts as originally written by Heinlein without singing them.
Other references
Ashley Williams, a character in the video game Mass EffectMass Effect
Mass Effect is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows by Demiurge Studios. The Xbox 360 version was released worldwide in November 2007 published by Microsoft Game Studios...
, was originally going to quote the poem during the game, but copyright issues led the developers to switch to using Tennyson's "Ulysses
Ulysses (poem)
"Ulysses" is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson , written in 1833 and published in 1842 in Tennyson's well-received second volume of poetry. An oft-quoted poem, it is popularly used to illustrate the dramatic monologue form...
" in the final cut of the game.
In his book Learning the World
Learning the World
Learning the World is a science fiction novel by Ken MacLeod published in 2005. It won the 2006 Prometheus Award, was nominated for the Hugo, Locus, Clarke, and Campbell Awards that same year, and received a BSFA nomination in 2005...
, Ken MacLeod
Ken MacLeod
Ken MacLeod , is a Scottish science fiction writer.MacLeod was born in Stornoway. He graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in zoology and has worked as a computer programmer and written a masters thesis on biomechanics....
pays homage to Heinlein by having a spacecraft evade an attack with the background intercom saying "All Hands! Stand by!" ... "Free Falling!" and the chapter concluding with "And the lights below us fade."
In a first season episode of Lost In Space
Lost in Space
Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968...
(1965), Doctor Smith speaks fondly of his desire to return to "The Greek Hills of Earth."
In Harry Turtledove
Harry Turtledove
Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.- Life :...
's second novel of the Worldwar
Worldwar
Worldwar is a series of novels by Harry Turtledove whose premise is an alien invasion of Earth in the middle of World War II. The military invasion begins on or around May 30, 1942, but the aliens, who call themselves the Race, reached Earth orbit in December 1941...
series, Worldwar: Tilting the Balance (p. 95), British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
speaks of defending "the green hills of Earth" against an invasion by reptilian aliens.
In Galileo Was Right, episode 10 of From the Earth to the Moon(HBO TV miniseries), at 48:00 into the episode, Mission Control is overheard telling the crew of Apollo 15
Apollo 15
Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the American Apollo space program, the fourth to land on the Moon and the eighth successful manned mission. It was the first of what were termed "J missions", long duration stays on the Moon with a greater focus on science than had been possible on previous...
"As the space-poet Rhysling would say, we're ready for you to 'come back again, to the homes of men, on the cool green hills of Earth' "
Real life
- Heinlein revealed in the liner notes to the Leonard Nimoy–read album The Green Hills of Earth that he partially based Rhysling's unique abilities on a blind machinist he worked with at the Philadelphia Naval Yards during World War II. He never identified him beyond the name "Tony". Heinlein was amazed that Tony had a perfect safety record and a production record equal to sighted machinists, and could identify all his co-workers solely on the sound of their footsteps and other aural clues, without need of them speaking to him first. Tony also occasionally played the accordion and sang for the assembled shop.
- In real-life space travel, references to Rhysling and "the green hills of Earth" were made by Apollo XV astronauts.
- Rhysling has been given another kind of recognition: the speculative fictionSpeculative fictionSpeculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
poetryPoetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
Rhysling Award.
External links
- Audio of Broadcast of "The Green Hills of Earth" from the NBC Radio Program X Minus OneX Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
in mp3 format. - Audio of Broadcast of "The Green Hills of Earth" from the NBC Radio Program X Minus OneX Minus OneX Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
from OTR Network. - Audio of Broadcast 21 July 1957 of "The Green Hills of Earth" from the CBS Radio Workshop in MP3 format at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
.