"Flight from Earth" - Marsh Family parody of Katy Perry's "Firework" on the Blue Origin space launch

CORRECTION: Laika died in 1957 - apologies for typo. For a fantastic (but sad) article on animals in space, see: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/what-was-first-animal-space.

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This is a song about Jeff Bezos’s launch of six female celebrities into zero gravity this week, via his elite suborbital tourism outfit, Blue Origin. In lots of respects it was very slick, exciting, impressive, and a tribute to technological advances, entrepreneurial investment, and the potential of the human species to navigate new frontiers. In lots of other respects it was a bizarre, vacuous, self-indulgent, problematic, transparent PR stunt hiding behind money, reputations, weird notions of girl power, and leaving in its wake a rather foul taste and lots of environmental damage. While we have no issue with the women involved, their quest for exhilaration and a life-altering opportunity etc., we do have issues with the framing and coverage of this joyride – as many others clearly do.

If you want to celebrate women, progress, science, space travel, and the future, surely there are better models and better mechanisms out there? If you have billions of dollars, surely there are better ways you can spend it?

We chose to adapt the anthemic 2010 song “Firework” by Katy Perry – one of Bezos’s invited trail-blazing space tourists – and whatever you think about her, this is a tough song to deliver live! We shared the relentless belts between the three girls. Apologies we forgot to isolate the clicker so you may get some of that too 😊. The original song (co-written with Ester Dean and producers Stargate and Sandy Vee) was on her biggest album Teenage Dream and is on our pump-up football playlist.

In case anyone’s not familiar with the news story, you can find some details (which helped shape our parody) here, including on the climate impact of Blue Origin etc.

- https://theconversation.com/why-katy-perrys-celebrity-spaceflight-blazed-a-trail-for-climate-breakdown-254824 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgek8engwmo

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LYRICS:

DO YOU EVER FEEL USING PLASTIC BAGS OR NOT RECYCLING’S SOMETHING YOU OUGHT TO CHANGE? DO YOU EVER FEEL, FEEL YOU CAN’T BEGIN LIKE YOUR LOUSY ACTS WON’T OFFSET ANYTHING

DON’T BE BROUGHT TO HEEL BY YOUR HYPOCRISY! SIX CELEBRITIES ARE SELLING ZERO GRAVITY DID YOU SEE THEIR HAIR – FANCY PANTS ALL BLUE WHO CARES WHAT *YOU* DO?!

WERE THEY NOT AN INSPIRING SIGHT – ALL SAT INSIDE? AN UNMANNED FLIGHT – TILL THE BALD GUY ARRIVED!

IT’S GREAT YOUR PHALLIC ROCKETS WORK BUT MISSION’S GOING DOWN ON EARTH PAID TO GO HIGH AS A PR EXERCISE!

MAYBE THEY CAN FIND SOME PERKS COSPLAYING A GENDER FIRST RECKON THEY’RE NOT THEY’RE NOT REAL COSMONAUTS

TOURIST MILLIONAIRES BLASTING OFF TO SPACE WHILE OUR PLANET HERE, CANNOT BE REPLACED HOW MUCH POINTLESS FUEL DOES THE OZONE HOLD? ONLY THE NASA-TRAINED SHOULD BE THE ONES TO GO

MAYBE A REASON WHY LOTS OF HACKLES ROSE IS THAT A CORPORATE STUNT WAS TREATED LIKE AN IDOL SHOW LIKE WITH SPUTNIK 2 (THE DOG THAT FROZE) IT JUST FELT KIND OF GROSS

IT WAS QUITE A BEGUILING SIGHT, THE SET CONFINED THEIR OUTFITS TIGHT – THEY WERE PERSONALIZED!

CAUSE PEOPLE ONLY FLY FROM EARTH DEPENDING ON JUST WHAT THEY’RE WORTH GOTTA HAVE DOUGH COS IT’S QUITE A TAXI RIDE

MAKING IT A FLIGHT FOR GIRLS ONLY MADE THE OPTICS WORSE MADE EM GO “OH, OH, OH”! FOR AN ELEVEN MINUTE TO AND FRO

OOH, OOH, OOH YOU GOT NEARER TO THE MOON, MOON, MOON I GUESS THAT’S REALLY NICE FOR YOU, YOU, YOU AND NOW IT’S FEATURED ON THE NEWS, NEWS, NEWS

THE REST OF US ARE BACK TO WORK STUCK ON OVERHEATING EARTH WONDERING WHY? THAT POLLUTION’S IN THE SKY

MAYBE IF THE OLIGARCHS PAID SOME OF THEIR TAXES FIRST THE LECTURES ON LOVE, LOVE, LOVE WOULD KINDA MEAN A LITTLE MORE

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM - DIDN’T REALLY READ THE ROOM, ROOM, ROOM ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM - LEAVING QUITE A LOT OF FUMES, FUMES, FUMES

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