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A sarcastic, fatalistic song in the vein of R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” “So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish” laments modern materialism, and using coded lyrical references, the song also pays tribute to pop culture icons who passed away in 2016.
The title is a reference to Douglas Adams' sci-fi series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the first book in that series, the earth is doomed to be destroyed to make way for a major transportation project. Douglas Adams, in his typically irreverent style, reveals that human beings are only the third most intelligent animals on the planet, after dolphins and mice. Aware of the planet’s imminent destruction, the dolphins try and fail to warn humanity, so they leave the planet and send a final, unheeded message to the humans of Earth:
The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the “Star Spangled Banner,” but in fact the message was this: so long, and thanks for all the fish.
Much like the dolphins in Adams' satirical science fiction opus, the individuals mentioned in the song have “moved on,” leaving the rest of us to face down a world increasingly divided by petty political squabbles, increasingly devastating natural disasters, and the growing threat of nuclear war.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish is also the name of the fourth novel in the Hitchhiker series.
This song premiered on BBC’s Rockfest Record on Sunday April 15, 2018
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