(Goin' Down the) Cosmic Drain

Sally Childs-Helton

This was my first attempt at writing an original filk song. Its introduction has often been "This song was on Hee Haw the night Carl Sagan guested," which pretty much sums up the song's aesthetic. The idea came from a 1986 NPR article about the supermassive black hole astronomers were now pretty sure was at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. I began wondering how people with little interest in or understanding of astronomy might receive this seemingly apocalyptic news that everything in the galaxy would end up going into this black hole like so much bath water going down a drain.

The song first appeared on Barry and Sally's first cassette project, Escape from Mundania (1987), and was released again in a 2001 remix by Dodeka Records on Tempus Fugitives. It escaped the filk room and was played on Dr. Demento. A few years later I was told it had further escaped into the wild and was being sung at Boy Scout Jamborees as a folksong, author unknown, and with new verses added, mostly about the kinds of [mostly rude] things Boy Scouts imagined themselves doing as they were goin' down the cosmic drain. The ethnomusicologist and folklorist in me finds it highly entertaining that this song has entered the folk canon.

"(Goin' Down the) Cosmic Drain" turned 40 this year; I am astounded and grateful that people still remember it. It was nominated in 2000 for a Pegasus as "Best End of the World Song" and the world didn't end, so it's back again! - Sally Childs-Helton

(Goin' Down the) Cosmic Drain

Words and Music: Copyright ©1986 by Sally Childs-Helton
All Rights Reserved
Lyrics posted with permission of the author

Those astronomy boys gave me a fright
As I listened to my radio the other night.
They say they're sure, they know they're right,
We're goin' down the cosmic drain.

CHORUS
There's a black hole in the middle of the galaxy -
It'll suck down you, it'll suck down me.
If you don't believe it, just wait and see -
We're goin' down the cosmic drain.

A black hole don't discriminate -
It'll take your house, your car, your mate.
Hold out your hand and meet your fate -
You're goin' down the cosmic drain.

CHORUS

Can't run, can't hide, can't fly away -
It'll get us all, so the scientists say.
There ain't no escape, there ain't no way -
We're goin' down the cosmic drain!

CHORUS

Don't have to walk, you've got a free ride;
You'll get to see what-all's inside -
That is, of course, if we all ain't died
As we're goin' down the cosmic drain.

CHORUS

Don't have to sign up, don't need to apply;
You're goin', that's a fact you can't deny.
Better hold your nose as you wave goodbye
As you're sucked on down the cosmic drain.

CHORUS

We're out in the boonies of the galaxy,
And we'll be the last through, it seems to me.
I'm told it has to do with entropy-
We're goin' down the cosmic drain.

CHORUS

This little song's been sung in vain.
It's ev'rything to lose, and nothin' to gain -
So we might as well sing the chorus again
As we go on down the cosmic drain!

CHORUS