This song is a parable about finding purpose in the age of AI when what you do best is done better by a machine.
Lyrics
[verse]
I was walking through the square
Where the old trees meet the sky,
Past the chessboards and the benches,
When I heard a robin cry.
She was standing by the fountain
With her feathers hanging low.
So I knelt beside her softly
And I asked what hurt her so.
(Expand for more…)
[verse]
She said, “I have seen the airplanes.
I have watched them climb and soar.
They can cross the widest ocean.
They can reach a distant shore.
“They can carry tons of cargo,
They can carry people too.
Tell me, what is left for robins?
What is there for me to do?
“My little wings are useless.
My finest flight is small.
Beside those silver giants,
I can hardly fly at all.”
[pre-chorus]
So I held her in my gaze
As the sunlight touched her breast,
And I said, “Perhaps the question
Is not who can fly the best.”
[chorus — the song within the song]
A robin need not cross the sea
Or carry freight to Rome.
A robin only needs her wings
To build a robin home.
She needs a branch, a patch of sky,
A morning washed in blue,
To sing a robin love song
And raise a robin or two.
The jet may thunder through the clouds
And vanish from our view,
But it cannot sing a love song
The way only robins do.
[verse]
She said, “But they are faster.
They can climb ten miles above.”
I said, “Speed is not the measure
Of a life designed for love.
“You were never meant for runways.
You were never built for freight.
You were given songs for sunrise
And a nest to feather straight.
“You can find a hidden earthworm.
You can greet the coming spring.
You can teach a child that morning
Is a reason still to sing.”
[chorus]
A robin need not cross the sea
Or carry freight to Rome.
A robin only needs her wings
To build a robin home.
She needs a branch, a patch of sky,
A morning washed in blue,
To sing a robin love song
And raise a robin or two.
The jet may thunder through the clouds
And vanish from our view,
But it cannot sing a love song
The way only robins do.
[bridge]
And I wondered, as she listened,
How often humans grieve
Because another life looks larger
Than the one that they receive.
We measure wings by distance.
We measure worth by speed.
We envy what can carry more
And miss what we can give.
But purpose is not winning
At every grand display.
It is finding what you’re here to love
And loving it each day.
[final chorus]
You do not need to cross the sea
To prove your wings are true.
You only need the kind of flight
That carries what is you.
Find your branch, your patch of sky,
The work that asks for you.
Sing your own true love song
And be best at what you do.
Let the great machines go roaring
Where great machines must go.
A robin’s flight is high enough
To live the life she knows.
[outro]
Then she rose above the fountain,
Past the elm trees, toward the blue,
And the whole wide sky seemed waiting
For the song that only she knew.
Alex Bakerloo 