Hi Christina, I just saw your comment 💔 I am so deeply sorry for your loss. I’m grateful to know that your dad connected with this song, and I’m sure you were one of the people that made it feel like time stood still for him. The love that you shared will last forever and I hope that your memories will be a comfort to you. Wishing you my best
"To me, the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time, that I don't know anything like enough yet, that I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way." -Christopher Hitchens
@@ShelleySegal you should check out the song “exist” by the band Avenged Sevenfold. It’s another great song that is kind of similar to this one except it’s metal. The lyrics kind of reminded me of this song
I've heard and appreciated a lot of music, and Shelley makes beyond any reasonable doubt some of the most lovely music on the Planet. Admittedly, not as complex as Mozart, not as sonorous as Beethoven, but hardly fails to bring tears to my eyes. Long live Shelley Segal and may her wonderful talent continue to shed beauty and compassion among us
One day I am going to die For me it means no more sunsets To the universe just one less person inventing things Almost all who have ever lived, have already lied Countless stories of blind desire to reproduce Now loudly their DNA hides by tribe And yes I comprehend that my life is supremely important if it can add something to the history of the Earth, as with each parasite that any of us can be But this moment that is the only thing true It feels like time repeats itself That scumbags win out over lovers And that they always do To think we are unimportan, is an obvious crime We know we are frightened specks in a common blot Hurtling through flawed parents and of our peerage grime In only a decade, the oceans will flood While the powerful liars will continue It would be known to your children, if have them you would.
A wonderful tribute to an equally wonderful man; to fill others with that kind of inspiration and hope for a better future, as Hitch did so well, really is to live on in the minds of others. I believe that a major cause of human suffering is the difficulty we face in attributing meaning to our lives in pursuit of a better future. We all desire a sense of belonging and appreciation and Hitch played a significant role in helping me realise what role I want to play in bettering our global society.
i love this song. it describes perfectly the struggle of accepting the utter insignificance of humanity while trying to retain a bit of hope. it may not matter in the grand scheme of things, but it matters to us. that is still important.
Thanks Wolf, I'm so glad to know it resonates with you. I think this is still my favourite song to sing live, it makes me feel like time is slowed down and there's only the one moment
Wow, this song made me tear up immediately when I heard it on AaronRa's newest video. I just had to come over and hear it in full, and maybe sign up for the Patreon, just becauseof this one song.
Shelley Segal Let me repeat myself. You are really something. I just liked you on Facebook. I gonna look for the "Atheist Album". Maybe I will find it on Amazon or on your homepage.
It's no surprise there is increasing polarity of political views in the west; politics is general is becoming more complex as we become a more diverse and integrated global community. It is so hard to determine what individual role you want to play in contributing to society, many people just feel overwhelmed and resort to political apathy, despite wanting to see change. Shelley, I think music like yours is vital in helping to raise awareness of societal issues so that they may be addressed.
I was at the Reason Rally yesterday and heard you sing this song onstage. Immediately I fell in love and knew I wanted to hear more songs like it. Thank you for attending the rally and giving me (and many others) the opportunity to discover your inspiring, thought-provoking music.
Some may find the lyrics to this song depressing, I take a different view (I apologize for the lengthy Victorian English Quote): "It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." - Charles R. Darwin Origin of Species first edition.
There's an entangled forsythia bush that I let grow to dangle over across the patio door, and a dove came to roost in a nest there. It stared at me every time I sat by the computer in the sitting room here. She kinda knew I was OK, because she crash-landed in the garden last year with a bloodied wing, and flapped madly when I inadvertently came across her, but we formed a certain detente. I backed off while making calm sounds. Later I put some food and water near her, and she seemed to appreciate that. After 3 days she flew away. I know, why 3. Sigh. It just happened to be three. Then, a year later, she comes back to have babies. In the bush outside the windowed door. In a nest more flimsy than I would have thought likely. And about 2 1/2 weeks later there are two scraggy looking little dove toddlers craning their necks and staring down at me from that nest. Amazing. Nothing against cats, but telling them politely to keep out of the garden here paid off in that way, after all, they have all the other gardens to go be naughty in :-)
*_"...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved"_* That is the only time in _On the Origin of Species_ that he uses that word. He never uses evolve or evolution once. {:-:-:}
Shelley, I love this song. The beat, the melody, your voice, the subject...every part of it. The music makes me feel good and the subject is uplifting. You show clearly how love gives meaning to a mortal life.
I had to come back and listen again. What was it Sagan said? _“The Cosmos is all that is, or was, or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us; there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”_ Same with this song. {:-:-:}
On Saturday at the Rally, in the drizzling mist I discovered the beautiful flower that is you. Reason, Logic, Courage and Hitchens ... Thanks so much Shelly.
beautiful. we need more of us truth seekers (i.e. those immune to wishful thinking) people to find these wonderful expressions of the majesty of nature and all its numinosity (as Hitch liked to put it)
heard you on the last aron ra episode,..looked you up,...and have to say ..EXCELLENT,..so, so, good. my newest favorite song, i will forward to my friends.awesome voice, great melody, tearjerkingly beautifull lyrics. thank you shelley !
Us atheists are a rare unique bunch ,the only ones who know the true fundamental meaning of reality and life , the actual custodians of our planet . WE must prevail.
@@ShelleySegal this song makes me realize just how insignificant we are. We are a speck on a speck orbiting a speck, one of billions of specks orbiting a speck in a sea of specks.
What an amazing song. This song puts the text into the context and then juxtaposes that with the absolute. WOW! This one has a universal message - listening to it I think of those I have loved and lost, and those who are no longer with me. I love your music Shelley - keep the good work up!
Your lyrics 'In one billion years, the oceans will dry/ While somehow life may continue/It will not be known to you and I', really speak to me. They remind me of a quote from one of Hitch's favorite writers, Bertrand Russel; introduced to me by Hitch during one of his many speaking engagements. "There are some things that I don't think I shall ever learn and I hope I shall never learn. I don't wish to learn to change my hopes for the world. I'm prepared to change my beliefs about the state of the world, about what happens, but not about what I hope. About that, I hope to remain constant. It's very difficult for anybody born since 1914 to realize how profoundly different the world is now from what it was when I was a child. The change has been almost unbelievable. I try as best I can, despite my years, to get used to living in a world of atom bombs. A world where ancient empires vanish at morning mist. The world is altogether so different from what it was when I was young, that it's an extraordinarily difficult thing for an old man to live in such a world. " Bertrand Russel 1952
@purpleshells This is beautiful Shelley. I bought your album in the itunes store :) which is awesome. I now find myself in the dilemma that since I didn't buy a hard copy, where I will get you to give me an autograph at the Reason Rally. I'm very happy happy that you will take part in it btw. Less that one month away now. Can't wait.
I think it really would touch them Shelley. I first heard your music on a live stream with Greydon Square a few weeks ago. It instantly caught my attention & I love it. I love Hitchens also. Read most of his books. Still need to get through his auto biography. It has quite an emotional forward in the reprinted version that I have.
Thanks heaps for the support !
You made me cry, Shelley... I love you for that.
This voice saved me from feeling alone as an atheist 😭😭😭❤❤❤
Wow - thank you Android, that means a lot to me!
You aren't alone!
You're not alone!
After a year now I'm feeling again... That I'm not alone... I found communities ❤
❤❤❤❤❤
Thanks Shelley. He deserved a song.
my dad died yesterday and this was his favorite soong.
Hi Christina,
I just saw your comment 💔
I am so deeply sorry for your loss. I’m grateful to know that your dad connected with this song, and I’m sure you were one of the people that made it feel like time stood still for him. The love that you shared will last forever and I hope that your memories will be a comfort to you.
Wishing you my best
A great song for a great human being.
"To me, the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time, that I don't know anything like enough yet, that I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way."
-Christopher Hitchens
He ks dead, she is not
Thanks Shelley - you really rock!!!!!!!
AMAZING! This song is awesome! I miss hitchens so much😢
Thanks so much ❤️ This is my favorite song to sing live
@@ShelleySegal you should check out the song “exist” by the band Avenged Sevenfold. It’s another great song that is kind of similar to this one except it’s metal. The lyrics kind of reminded me of this song
Still love this song and Shelly🤗her lyrics always say it .a touch of Carl Sagan in this song 💟 Jimmy Dublin Ireland
Thanks Jimmy! Yes definitely some inspiration from Carl
Love you Shelley!
Apocalyptic Love Song for Hitchens. From 'An Atheist Album'
Love your music and the lyrics.
Thanks Don :)
This is my favorite.
I've heard and appreciated a lot of music, and Shelley makes beyond any reasonable doubt some of the most lovely music on the Planet. Admittedly, not as complex as Mozart, not as sonorous as Beethoven, but hardly fails to bring tears to my eyes. Long live Shelley Segal and may her wonderful talent continue to shed beauty and compassion among us
One day I am going to die
For me it means no more sunsets
To the universe just one less person inventing things
Almost all who have ever lived, have already lied
Countless stories of blind desire to reproduce
Now loudly their DNA hides by tribe
And yes I comprehend that my life is supremely important if it can add something
to the history of the Earth, as with each parasite that any of us can be
But this moment that is the only thing true
It feels like time repeats itself
That scumbags win out over lovers
And that they always do
To think we are unimportan, is an obvious crime
We know we are frightened specks in a common blot
Hurtling through flawed parents and of our peerage grime
In only a decade, the oceans will flood
While the powerful liars will continue
It would be known to your children, if have them you would.
Shelley you are a beautiful human being.
Why thank you David :D
A wonderful tribute to an equally wonderful man; to fill others with that kind of inspiration and hope for a better future, as Hitch did so well, really is to live on in the minds of others.
I believe that a major cause of human suffering is the difficulty we face in attributing meaning to our lives in pursuit of a better future. We all desire a sense of belonging and appreciation and Hitch played a significant role in helping me realise what role I want to play in bettering our global society.
i love this song. it describes perfectly the struggle of accepting the utter insignificance of humanity while trying to retain a bit of hope. it may not matter in the grand scheme of things, but it matters to us. that is still important.
+TheToric
Thanks Toric :D
We make things matter. We create mattering :)
I miss him dearly 😢
Me too
I tear up when I think of Hitchens, Thanks for writing this beautiful song.
This is the most romantic song I've ever heard.
The contrast between an indifferent universe and being in love makes it so powerful.
Thanks Jay
Yes
I never knew about Hitchens until recently. This song is awesome, great job!
Such a great song :'( i miss Christopher Hitchens so much
*"Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way."*
Christopher Hitchens
Miss him
@@ShelleySegal This is my favourite statement by the late Hitch.
Truly a love song for the ages
This song just touches me, i feel understood, keep it up
Thanks Wolf, I'm so glad to know it resonates with you. I think this is still my favourite song to sing live, it makes me feel like time is slowed down and there's only the one moment
I heard this song on an Aron Ra video and immediately fell in love. I knew I had to find it.
great song
Thanks!
Wow, this song made me tear up immediately when I heard it on AaronRa's newest video. I just had to come over and hear it in full, and maybe sign up for the Patreon, just becauseof this one song.
Thanks Brett. Really glad it resonated with you :D
and thanks so much for becoming a Patreon!! I hope you'll enjoy it!
A great dedication to an amazing figure in our history.
Oh, I love everything about this song. Thank you Shelly!! From a big fan in the States.
I want this played at my funeral... Fab... Pity I won't hear it then! lol :)
Have faith comrade! 😉
THIS IS AMAZING ✋
Thank you I’m so glad you like it!
Great song... brings a tear to the eye. So true.
Brings a tear 'every' time I listen. Which I do a lot,
Brilliant lyrics and so so well performed! I am in love with that voice.
Ernie Hudson
Shelley Segal Let me repeat myself.
You are really something. I just liked you on Facebook.
I gonna look for the "Atheist Album". Maybe I will find it on Amazon or on your homepage.
It's no surprise there is increasing polarity of political views in the west; politics is general is becoming more complex as we become a more diverse and integrated global community. It is so hard to determine what individual role you want to play in contributing to society, many people just feel overwhelmed and resort to political apathy, despite wanting to see change.
Shelley, I think music like yours is vital in helping to raise awareness of societal issues so that they may be addressed.
I was at the Reason Rally yesterday and heard you sing this song onstage. Immediately I fell in love and knew I wanted to hear more songs like it. Thank you for attending the rally and giving me (and many others) the opportunity to discover your inspiring, thought-provoking music.
It occurs to me that this song would also be a fitting tribute to Carl Sagan as well as Hitch. It feels like "The Pale Blue Dot" made into song.
literally playing it over and over again... i miss the dude :'(
Thank you for your balls, you've given me courage to feel my own conjones.
And a lot of thanks to the Hitch.
Why thank you. That's how I felt about Hitch
Wow...yes! Yes! I love this song. Hell yea! Thank you.
❤
Some may find the lyrics to this song depressing, I take a different view (I apologize for the lengthy Victorian English Quote):
"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." - Charles R. Darwin Origin of Species first edition.
THe sentiment uplifts me. What we have is more than enough
There's an entangled forsythia bush that I let grow to dangle over across the patio door, and a dove came to roost in a nest there. It stared at me every time I sat by the computer in the sitting room here.
She kinda knew I was OK, because she crash-landed in the garden last year with a bloodied wing, and flapped madly when I inadvertently came across her, but we formed a certain detente. I backed off while making calm sounds. Later I put some food and water near her, and she seemed to appreciate that. After 3 days she flew away.
I know, why 3. Sigh. It just happened to be three.
Then, a year later, she comes back to have babies. In the bush outside the windowed door. In a nest more flimsy than I would have thought likely.
And about 2 1/2 weeks later there are two scraggy looking little dove toddlers craning their necks and staring down at me from that nest. Amazing.
Nothing against cats, but telling them politely to keep out of the garden here paid off in that way, after all, they have all the other gardens to go be naughty in :-)
@Alexander LegisNonScriptae. You are such a soyboy. I pity your Teddybear hygienist!
@myalterego, yes, I hear what you're saying, but being circumspect is a price we actual lovers of truth and life have to pay :-)
*_"...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved"_*
That is the only time in _On the Origin of Species_ that he uses that word. He never uses evolve or evolution once.
{:-:-:}
Wow! I love the lyrics. And you've got such a pleasant voice.
Thank you. Great job!
+Stephan Bentvelzen Thanks Stephan
Shelly you are just so wonderful- I love your style, voice, and heart.
+JONATHAN KISER
Mad love and respect for this. Thinking people will never cease to exist. Keepcprocreating working brains.
Thanks for listening Sleepy ❤️
@@ShelleySegal no problem. Keep it up.
Can't believe it's 10 years since we lost this amazing man
Raising my glass of whiskey to Hitch on Easter Sunday 2020.
Shelley, I love this song. The beat, the melody, your voice, the subject...every part of it. The music makes me feel good and the subject is uplifting. You show clearly how love gives meaning to a mortal life.
Happy Hitchmas :'(
Happy Birthday Hitch!
+Frederik Hirche :)
Thank you for this beautiful song. This makes me happy to be alive at this brief moment in time.
If I were younger I'd ask for the drum gig. :)
So proud of you Shelley!
+mrdfac
I just love the part where the voice changes to "Yes, I understand my whole life is just..."
It just sounds so good.
Ernie Hudson My fave bit to sing
Shelley Segal One can definitely hear that.
You are really talented.
Why doesn't this song have more likes?!?
Absolutely astonishing. Indeed. How can such a masterpiece not have many orders of magnitude more views and likes.
Oh my I feel that every word in this song is so true to my heart
This whole album is great. But I absolutely love this song, in particular.
I had to come back and listen again.
What was it Sagan said?
_“The Cosmos is all that is, or was, or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us; there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”_
Same with this song.
{:-:-:}
On Saturday at the Rally, in the drizzling mist I discovered the beautiful flower that is you.
Reason, Logic, Courage and Hitchens ...
Thanks so much Shelly.
I was so happy to hear Shelley at the Rally on Saturday....buying the album right now! Thank you!
Shelley, I like most everything you do. I was once a believer but not today at 74. Keep up your good work
Miss the Hitch.
Beautiful.
Thanks
beautiful. we need more of us truth seekers (i.e. those immune to wishful thinking) people to find these wonderful expressions of the majesty of nature and all its numinosity (as Hitch liked to put it)
Thank you Ivan! There is so much beauty in life and nature to sing about :D
heard you on the last aron ra episode,..looked you up,...and have to say ..EXCELLENT,..so, so, good. my newest favorite song, i will forward to my friends.awesome voice, great melody, tearjerkingly beautifull lyrics. thank you shelley !
Thanks so much Mykemaul!!!
if you ever come to Maui,..your invited to come jamm with me and my friends.....Aloha !
Us atheists are a rare unique bunch ,the only ones who know the true fundamental meaning of reality and life , the actual custodians of our planet . WE must prevail.
It is pretty strange how uncommon it is to not believe in fairies.
I cry sometimes when I listen to this and think of how much hitchens means to me
He was such an amazing influence, it’s hard to believe he’s gone
How I wish Hitch could heard this. I think He would have been moved. Love your music.
I love you Shelly!!!
holy shit this song feels so good to listen to
Thank you Heath!!
What a lovely song.
Thanks for the incredible music
Not the kind of music I listen to...(sober). But I love that song.
The only song that has ever made me tear up
It gets me pretty much every time I sing it hehe
Just bought your album. I love this song.
Thanks Shelley! This song is amazing and really speaks to me.
I’m so glad Damon. Thanks for taking the time to tell me so
@@ShelleySegal this song makes me realize just how insignificant we are. We are a speck on a speck orbiting a speck, one of billions of specks orbiting a speck in a sea of specks.
Thanks Shelly! You’re the greatest keep bringing us truth❤️ Rip Hitch!
Thanks Goddess.
Big love to you
BEAUTIFUL!!!
yeah,that's what i thought the first time i've heard it,now can't stop listening to it,great song :)
Love your work and bought your album.
Thanks a lot Tim - I appreciate that!
No one in my entire life, has changed my life, like this man. Hitch....
He was pretty incredible
You know what, thanks for writing that. I realised, reading it, that he drastically changed mine too.
What an amazing song. This song puts the text into the context and then juxtaposes that with the absolute. WOW! This one has a universal message - listening to it I think of those I have loved and lost, and those who are no longer with me. I love your music Shelley - keep the good work up!
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on the song. I think you put it really beautifully. Sending my best xx
@@ShelleySegal That`s so nice of your to say that. Thankyou Shelley!
Your lyrics 'In one billion years, the oceans will dry/
While somehow life may continue/It will not be known to you and I', really speak to me. They remind me of a quote from one of Hitch's favorite writers, Bertrand Russel; introduced to me by Hitch during one of his many speaking engagements.
"There are some things that I don't think I shall ever learn and I hope I shall never learn. I don't wish to learn to change my hopes for the world. I'm prepared to change my beliefs about the state of the world, about what happens, but not about what I hope. About that, I hope to remain constant. It's very difficult for anybody born since 1914 to realize how profoundly different the world is now from what it was when I was a child. The change has been almost unbelievable. I try as best I can, despite my years, to get used to living in a world of atom bombs. A world where ancient empires vanish at morning mist. The world is altogether so different from what it was when I was young, that it's an extraordinarily difficult thing for an old man to live in such a world. "
Bertrand Russel 1952
Happy Birthday Christopher Hitchens ❤️
Marvellous. This was really good. Thanks for posting!
Great!
You're amazing!
I've heard of christian music before, but never atheist music :P love the lyrics!
@purpleshells This is beautiful Shelley. I bought your album in the itunes store :) which is awesome.
I now find myself in the dilemma that since I didn't buy a hard copy, where I will get you to give me an autograph at the Reason Rally. I'm very happy happy that you will take part in it btw. Less that one month away now. Can't wait.
Haunting and melancholy...
Chills. This is great. XD
And now I can finally buy your album!
:) If you buy an album from my website, I can send it to you
There is a link in the description, youtube won't let me post it here
Love it
This is amazing, great work
Thank you Mr Hat :D
I think it really would touch them Shelley. I first heard your music on a live stream with Greydon Square a few weeks ago. It instantly caught my attention & I love it. I love Hitchens also. Read most of his books. Still need to get through his auto biography. It has quite an emotional forward in the reprinted version that I have.
I love this. You're awesome.
Wow. I love this.
Thank u for a great song dedicated to a great secularist
Thanks heaps! Glad you like it. My album is available on bandcamp :D
Your lyrics are fantastic.
Great song!
Thank you :)
Shelley Segal ~ This is fucking beautiful. #GU
me too. It's nice to read him though, feels like he's still around :)
His work and even his spoken words will always be with us. Miss the gorgeous "bastard".