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about

I've been wanting to write a song about Dunbar's number a while now. Several weeks ago, the weekly song prompt for writers group I'm in was "walls". And I have weird ways of picturing how we store our sense of other personalities we know in our brains.

For example, although I never played with Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars as a kid, I can vividly and painfully remember stepping on my son's collection when they were occasionally left out of their carrying case. And the carrying cases for these little cars were kind of cool. (Also, there's that Darth Vader carrying case for your Star Wars action figures.) So are all the people you know stored in their own little boxes in your mind palace?
Also, I knew I had to write this song so I could rhyme cortex with Gore-Tex.

lyrics

One Hundred Fifty
Copyright 2017 by Mary Crowell

Sweetie?

Let’s stop looking at computers for a moment:
The Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr.
You can only track about one hundred fifty people
In your noggin—That’s Dunbar’s number.

Chorus:
I picture us all separated by walls
Stored in your brain like Matchbox cars
In one of those cute little carrying cases
That only has just enough spaces
For one hundred fifty or fewer (not less)
I hope I’m one of yours, I guess.

I fear I might be taxing your capacity
So I’m holding to my spot with tenacity
All the folks you try to know are out there just a shifting
Beating the door of number one fifty.

Chorus

Bridge:
I picture a zombie horde
Don’t wanna to eat your brain—just climb aboard
And be one of your one fifty.
No one wants to be the one that gets ignored.

Supposedly this number is the one your neocortex
Can handle. Count the parking where the folks are making Gore-Tex.
When the number of staff reaches one hundred and fifty.
They know it’s time to make new facilities.

Chorus
I think I’m one of yours, I guess.

credits

from Mary Crowell's Patreon: Year Three, track released December 12, 2017
Recorded using Logic Pro X
Vocal microphone is an AT 4050

All vocals, piano, and MIDI instruments by Mary Crowell

license

all rights reserved

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about

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Mary Crowell Athens, Alabama

Mary Crowell is a singer/songwriter and piano teacher who loves mythology and playing Dungeons & Dragons.
Her Patreon is here: www.patreon.com/DrMaryCCrowell
She may be seen at science fiction and filk conventions performing and accompanying concerts on piano and occasionally clarinet.
Scattering Seeds on the Pomegranate Tour is her third solo album and is a mythic musical journey! ... more

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