2005-04-12

Oh Larsen B

Those of you who remember the late lamented Larsen B ice shelf that collapsed in 1994/5 (was it really 10 years ago...?) may be interested in a track by British Sea Power (ah, those were the days: you know, we really should have intervened in the US civil war...) called "Oh Larsen B". You can hear it here (legally or not I don't know). I quite like it.

Is this the first ever song written for an ice shelf? I suspect so.

The lyrics are:


You're fractured and cold, but your heart is unbroken
My favourite, foremost coastal Antarctic shelf
Oh Larsen B, oh you can fall on me!
Oh Larsen B, desalinate the Barents Sea!

Oh I, I think it's over again
Like sawblades through the air, your winter overture
Cut through everything, and now we're not so sure
Oh Larsen B, oh won't you fall on me!

You had 12,000 years, and now it's all over
500 billion tonnes of the purest packice and snow
Oh Larsen B, oh won't you fall on me!
Oh Larsen B, desalinate the Barents Sea!

Oh I think it's the start of the end
Like sawblades through the air, your winter overture
Cut through everything, and now we're not so sure
Oh Larsen B, oh fall on me!
Oh Larsen B, oh fall on me!
Oh Larsen B, won't you fall on me!

Oh Larsen B, Oh Larsen B
Oh won't you fall on me!
Oh you can fall on me!


Quite why they pick the Barents sea when there is a perfectly good Weddell Sea to use instead I don't know. Ditto the 12kyr. And it wasn't packice. Isn't pedantry wonderful.

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