Humankind - Coldplay

Many and strange are the things of this world But nothing's as strange, or quite as absurd As you and I — Humankind — You might have heard: We're kind of the worst Is the title deserved? — Human Beings It's a quarter million years since we came on the scene In the past 300, we made some machines And began a new age — the Anthropocene ...Now just how extreme do I have to be To have a whole planet age that's named after me? Anthropos — human — it's Greek — I agree We changed the whole thing by quite a degree... Celsius. — See? — It's kind of intense — We don't always make ecological sense Cuz the things we invent, for survival success May, in the end, just lead to our deaths! ...Yes. ... But for now we're alive And while we're all here, we may as well ask why — And how'd we change so much, in so little time — The history of Strange Humankind Well, we've been around 300 thou' And it all started out au naturale — No horse, no plough; no slave, no master — That's fire, Wow! — we hunted, and gathered But nearer to now — 12 millenia tops — Just a little while relative to how long we've walked Upon this rock — someone stopped and said Let's plant crops! And settle in a place, make bread and tend flocks Bet — why not? But in the course of time As the hunter-gatherer became the grower of the vine It brought about changes in their hearts and minds Your farm's there; this farm's mine Darn — fine. Don't let it get your goose — They started owning animals — and ownership and use Came to dominate a consciousness that used to keep it loose For as one lives, so is one's truth We changed, we adapted — Our numbers increasing Our Feeling gave way To Thinking and Reasoning People of taste — eating with seasoning Instead of just eating whatever the season brings I sing how the shift began As they planted grains in the shifting sand As the power-grip shifted throughout the lands From animal to human, and from woman to man From family to clan — and what slipped through the cracks As the way got paved, was the way to get back From the fictions we made to the natural fact Of the Here and the Now. — We became abstract ...That's that Home on the range The world was ours But the world was changed And the things of this world Became things of exchange And the Earth and the Self Which were one Were estranged None stranger you can find Than the stranger Humankind Ah yes. Humans will be humans — Dust unto dust to industrial revolution The age of mass production and accelerated movement — And it never really ended, cuz we're kinda still doin it Throw this one a way, buy myself a new one — Throw myself away — my self is such a nuisance — Find myself a way to disappear into my room and If I need to know what life is like I'll stay at home and google it And true, we've made progress And awesome hits And the laptop software I wrought this with — But we also made an big atomic bomb that hit And for all time altered all of this The radiation remains And in our blood and our brains Are all the particles of polythene in hydrocarbon chains From our plastic bags — And so it's hardly strange We made a problem as large As climate change Change. Money — But money is nothing It really is, kids, it's just a symbol of something — Just a little piece of paper on a number we're running You can't live in it or eat it And it's not even yummy It's stunning — to think that we don't actually need it — I mean it — we really don't actually need it We grow enough a day to feed the planet and to keep it As a thing that's free for everyone and yet we don't feed them And you may say, Wait! we got a bottom line At the top they got a lot and at the bottom not a dime — But that concept's not inherent in the mind It's contingent on the way we've developed over time — I'm not denying it's survival of the fittest But survival of the fittest wasn't always such a business It was different when applied to our original conditions When we tried to fit the best with ecosystems that we lived in Ahhh, homo sapiens — One part progress, one part sloppiness I don't want to descend into soppiness But sometimes I feel sorry for all of us But then I think this — if we human beings Have changed the world once for the worse, then it seems We could change it again — We could intervene And give a new meaning to Anthropocene Imagine the scene — Ecstatically green — The age when humanity gathers its dream into action — and seeing The rational being Reconnected at last, with a planet that's clean This means that we're not the worst Your actions do matter The plan is not cursed Integrate the new with the way we lived first And celebrate the work Save the Humans of the Earth It isn't just words Or an abstract movement — It's a fact, and a truth That if everyone is doin' what They can where they're at Well then that's a revolution — A radical reunion of the planet and the human ... So yeah it is strange Being this animal, having this brain — And yet we can change — and may redefine Just what it is to be human: kind