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"'The Green Hills of Earth'" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein. One of his Future History stories, it originally appeared in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' (February 8, 1947) and was collected in ''The Green Hills of Earth'' (and subsequently ''The Past Through Tomorrow'').

Contents

Plot summary

The Songs

References in Other Heinlein Works

Film, TV, Radio or theatrical adaptations

Other References

Real Life

External links

Plot summary

This is the poignant story of "Noisy" Rhysling, the blind space-going songwriter whose poetic skills rival Rudyard Kipling's. Heinlein (himself a retired naval officer) spins a yarn about a radiation-blinded spaceship engineer crisscrossing the solar system writing and singing some of the best lyrics in science fiction. In a fine display of writing skill, the spaceship and crew feel as real to the reader as a contemporary tramp steamer.
Heinlein credited the title of the song to the short story "Shambleau" by C. L. Moore (first published in 1933). In the story Moore's character, a spacefaring smuggler named Northwest Smith hums the tune of "The Green Hills of Earth".
No connection has been proven between this title and Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa; however, that was published in 1935, just a few years before the Heinlein story, and was well-known enough that Heinlein was likely to have heard of it, even if he did not read it.

The Songs

Heinlein wrote several fragments and one full stanza for the song.

★ — ''the harsh bright soil of Luna'' —

★ — ''Out ride the sons of Terra; Far drives the thundering jet'' —

★ — ''Saturn's rainbow rings'' —

★ — ''the frozen night of Titan'' —

★ ''We pray for one last landing; On the globe that gave us birth; Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies; And the cool, green hills of Earth.''
The fragments have been filled out and additional stanzas added by the filk community. The song's meter allows it to be sung to a number of popular tunes including: Amazing Grace, The House of the Rising Sun, The Rising of the Moon/Wearing of the Green, Ode to Joy, Clementine, Semper Paratus (march), and The Marine Corps Hymn. The most popular tune used at conventions is the theme from Gilligan's Island.
The story features several other partial songs and a number of titles attributed to Rhysling. These are:

★ ''The Grand Canal'' (10 lines)

★ ''Jet Song'' (14 lines)

★ ''Since the Pusher Met My Cousin'' (title only)

★ ''That Red-Headed Venusburg Gal'' (title only)

★ ''Keep Your Pants On, Skipper'' (title only)

★ ''A Space Suit Built for Two'' (title only)
The last four are described as sexually-explicit songs excluded from the official edition of Rhysling's works — which might be a hint of Heinlein's own position at the time, facing editors' and publishers' censoring of such material in his stories and books.

References in Other Heinlein Works

Both the song "The Green Hills of Earth" and the character of Rhysling are mentioned in the novel ''Time Enough for Love''. At an early point in the novel, Lazarus Long bemoans the fact that he cannot "pray for one last landing" because the "Green Hills of Earth" have deteriorated and the planet is uninhabitable. Later, Lazarus tells the story of a very blind accordion player who temporarily takes residence in a bordello that he owned on Mars almost two thousand years ago. Although Heinlein readers can easily recognize the character, Lazarus himself does not "recall his right name, if he had one."
The song "The Green Hills of Earth" is referenced thrice in ''Farmer in the Sky'' as a piece that Bill Lermer plays on his own accordion. Later in that same novel, Lermer is trying to identify a quote ("I have lived and worked with men") and guesses that it was written by Rhysling or Kipling.
Joe-Jim Gregory, the two-headed mutant in ''Universe'', are both fond of "Rhysling, the blind singer of the spaceways." This reference to the character appeared six years before Heinlein actually published "The Green Hills of Earth."

Film, TV, Radio or theatrical adaptations

The story was adapted for the ''Dimension X'' radio series (episode 10). It also appeared on the 1955-07-07 broadcast of the NBC Radio Network program ''X Minus One'' and ''CBS Radio Workshop''. This version is told from the point of view of a friend of Rhysling's, and has Rhysling using a guitar instead of an accordion. The song "The Green Hills of Earth" which appears in the story was also used in 11th episode of the third series of the British radio series, ''Journey into Space''.
The 1951-1952 television series ''Out There'' (episode aired December 2, 1951) had a loosely-adapted version of the story (Rhysling is on a mission to the asteroids with a crew which includes a beautiful blonde biologist) which starred singer John Raitt.

Other References

The song was echoed on Paul Winter's 1982 album ''Missa Gaia/Earth Mass'', in which Susan Osborn sang the lead on ''The Blue Green Hills of Earth''. The connection was suggested to him by astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who walked in space on the Apollo 9 mission, inspired by Schweickart's view of Earth from orbit.
In his book "Learning the World", Ken MacLeod pays homage to Heinlein by having a spacecraft evade an attack with the background intercom saying "All Hands! Stand by!" ... "Free Falling!" and the chapter concluding with "And the lights below us fade."

Real Life

★ Heinlein revealed in the liner notes to the Leonard Nimoy-read album "The Green Hills of Earth," that he partially based Rhysling's unique abilities on a blind machinist he worked with at the Philadelphia Naval Yards during World War II. He never identified him beyond the name "Tony." Heinlein was amazed that Tony had a perfect safety record and a production record equal to sighted machinists, and could identify all his co-workers solely on the sound of their footsteps and other aural clues, without need of them speaking to him first. Tony also occasionally played the accordion and sang for the assembled shop.

★ In real-life space travel, references to Rhysling and "the green hills of Earth" were made by astronauts in the Apollo program.

★ Rhysling has been given another kind of recognition: the speculative fiction poetry Rhysling Award.

External links

★ Audio of Broadcast of "The Green Hills of Earth" from the NBC Radio Program ''X Minus One'' from OTR Network.