Boundless Gratitude: Songs of the month

• MP3 play whole song, hi-fi (broadband)
• MP3 play whole song, lo-fi (modem)

I originally wrote this song with the idea of enlivening an afternoon enrichment class in a local elementary school. The students in this class measure and compare their pulse rates. I think of this song as science writing put to music. It's the free download for the week of April 28, 2008, because that's when I'll be teaching the class.

Chorus:
Rhythm is a heartbeat
And heartbeat is a rhythm
Rhythm just like day and night
And changing of the seasons
Diastole and systole
Pump the blood through you and me
They make our rhythms rhyme
Lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub
Lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub
And if we count our rhythms carefully
We might just find our reason.


Now the heart is just a muscle
Pumping blood through arteries
Delivering air we breathe
To brains and to extremities.
(brief instrumental)
Through veins blood returns
For regular recycling
A rhythm that repeats
Again and again
And again and again
And again and again
And again and again

Chorus


About 70 times a minute
100,000 times a day
Carbon dioxide comes back to the heart
Through vena cavae
(brief instrumental)
The pulmonary artery
Takes blood back to the lungs
Where CO2 goes out
And in the oxygen comes
(brief instrumental)
The pulmonary vein
Takes it back into the heart that pumps
Oxygenated blood back out
To all of the body parts


How many heartbeats in a Valentine?
How far to fall in love with you?
Do waste products in veins
Include the pain of broken hearts?
Life seems unpredictable
But only in my brain.
Heart sings, “Count on me, my friend.
Throughout our life together
I’ll beat for you and only you
Again and again and again and again
And again and again and again and again
And again and again and again and again
And again and again and again.”

Chorus