Ben Newman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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bn_songbook2023-06-22 09:03 pm
bnewman) wrote in bn_songbook2023-06-22 09:03 pm
Entry tags:
More Than Ruby, More Than Perl
"Rubies" is part of Girls in Trouble, a cycle of feminist songs about Biblical women — in particular, about the "woman of valor" from Proverbs, who is, as the song says, better than rubies and pearls. But Ruby and Perl are also programming languages — and it so happens that there is another programming language that I love more than either.
lyrics by Benjamin Newman
lyrics by Benjamin Newman
/ G -C G - / Em - C - / G -C G D / G -C G - /
A serpent's curled in an apple tree
Her forked tongue, it beckons me
More than Ruby, more than Perl
The one I love
Living language, words that do
One is False, and one is True
More than Ruby, more than Perl
The one I love
/ C - G - / CG CG Em - / - G - C - / G D GC G /
The worlds I've woven with her
Take shape within my head
Coiled like a looping thread
She clears a field, and she reads a line
The fruit it yields is by design
More than Ruby, more than Perl
The one I love
She leaves no mark of a loop's embrace
She only needs a little space
More than Ruby, more than Perl
The one I love
She calls her birds, each kind by name
They quack like ducks, ducks they became
More than Ruby, more than Perl
The one I love
The worlds I've woven with her
Take shape within my head
Coiled like a looping thread
Beneath the clouds, beside the sea
There's a serpent curled in an apple tree
More than Ruby, more than Perl
The one I love