Lyrics Senescence - Baba Brinkman

Senescence

You got a body and I got a body and
When we get our bodies together mama, we partyin'
Reproducin' to keep it movin'
Doin' our bit for evolution
You got a body and I got a body and
They differ —
mine’ll probably fall apart quicker
I’m talkin' ten years not ten seconds
You and me baby, all the way to senescence
I just wanna be an aging B-Boy
Live long and prosper,
Leonard Nemoy
When it comes to longevity we’re killin' it
Life span longer than a Asian elephant
Chimps get jealous at us, their close relatives
We live like twenty years longer,
deal with it
If you look elsewhere though,
we’re dead frail
I want two hundred years like a bowhead whale!
Aging and senescence aren’t the same thing
Aging is time passing,
that’s a great thing
But senescence is bio-degrading
Sucks to be a mayfly on the day of mating
Time’s wasting,
evolution tracks it
Never puts all its eggs in one basket
Longer life is better when predators are scarce
‘Cause you can invest in care
But when the dangers of death surround you
Reproduce faster when hazards hound you
This is how our bodies got built
To achieve just one thing,
and it’s not health
You got a body and I got a body and
When we get our bodies together mama, we partyin'
Reproducin' to keep it movin'
Doin' our bit for evolution
You got a body and I got a body and
They differ —
mine’ll probably fall apart quicker
I’m talkin' ten years not ten seconds
You and me baby,
all the way to senescence
I love your body mama, it’s hella fine
Even if it’s kind of unintelligently designed
Even if it’s chock full of flaws,
you’re workin' it
Let’s be flawed together,
like other vertebrates
You’re hot,
even with your blind spot
Even with your optic nerve tryin' to block
Your retina,
that collection of blood vessels is odd
You’re hot,
but you’re no cephalopod
You’re flawed,
but I’m so flawed too
My throat is designed so I choke on food
The principle should be blatantly obvious
Don’t put the trachea in front of the esophagus!
You can see why that’s quite senseless
Passing every bite over your windpipe’s entrance
But these bodies never had a blueprint
Just generations and generations of evolution
Perfection of design,
that’s irrelevant
We take what we can from our past development
Even if it leaves us vulnerable
So here’s what I wanna do before we gotta go…
You got a body and I got a body and
When we get our bodies together mama, we partyin'
Reproducin' to keep it movin'
Doin' our bit for evolution
You got a body and I got a body and
They differ —
mine’ll probably fall apart quicker
I’m talkin' ten years not ten seconds
You and me baby,
all the way to senescence
Why don’t our bodies regenerate better?
And stretch out the lifespan like a tape measure?
Why would evolution let us deteriorate
And shape us into physically inferior apes?
In old age, pulmonary disease
Cancer, cardiovascular, diabetes
Neurodegeneration, heebie jeebies
Can I get some extra time if I eat my wheaties?
Or at least an explanation
That might help us one day to treat patients?
Here’s how George Williams might approach it
Genes are antagonistically pleiotropic
Their effects are quite various
Some are beneficial and some are deleterious
But if a mutation conveys a benefit
Early in life, but then messes up the rest of it
Helps an organism reproduce,
and later brings on the death of it,
natural selection will select for it
And that’s how senescence got built in
To our genome, now, speaking of children…
You got a body and I got a body and
When we get our bodies together mama, we partyin'
Reproducin' to keep it movin'
Doin' our bit for evolution
You got a body and I got a body and
They differ —
mine’ll probably fall apart quicker
I’m talkin' ten years not ten seconds
You and me baby, all the way to senescence