Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
Two scientists are racing
For the cure of all mankind
Both of them side by side
So determined
Locked in heated battle
For the cure that is their prize
But it's so dangerous
But they're determined
Theirs is to win
If it kills them
They're just human
With wives and children
Upwards to the vanguard
Where the pressure is so high
Under the microscope
Hope against hope
Forging for the future
But to sacrifice their lives
Both of them side by side
So determined
Theirs is to win
If it kills them
They're just human
With wives and children
Theirs is to win
If it kills them
They're just human
With wives and children
For the cure of all mankind
Both of them side by side
So determined
Locked in heated battle
For the cure that is their prize
But it's so dangerous
But they're determined
Theirs is to win
If it kills them
They're just human
With wives and children
Upwards to the vanguard
Where the pressure is so high
Under the microscope
Hope against hope
Forging for the future
But to sacrifice their lives
Both of them side by side
So determined
Theirs is to win
If it kills them
They're just human
With wives and children
Theirs is to win
If it kills them
They're just human
With wives and children
Lyrics submitted by BobSaget666
Track duration: 04:09
"Race for the Prize" as written by Michael Ivins, Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
The first three songs on here are about the creation, and explosion of the atomic bomb. The scientists they are speaking of are the dudes involved in the Manhatten Project. The atomic scientists even have a publication called "The Atomic Bulletin" , this is where the doomsday clock comes from.
Anyways..."Race for the Prize" pretty much chronicles the creation of the bomb while "Spoonful Weighs a Ton" is totally obvious in its imagery of nuclear power.
And though they were sad (they were sad they created such a destructive force)
They rescued everyone (ended the war)
They lifted up the sun (the atom bomb had the power of the sun)
A spoonful weighs a ton (atomic warheads are super small with enormous power)
Giving more than they had
The process had begun (allusion to tremendous pressure and sacrifice that was a result of the project including radiation exposure to the scientists)
A million came from one
The limits now were none
Being drunk on their plan, they lifted up the sun (obvious allusion to atomic explosion)
The last song in the trilogy is "The Spark That Bled". To anyone who has studied the Hiroshima/Nagasaki incidents the lyrics pretty much describe someone who is on the outside peripheral of the explosion.
I accidentally touched my head
And noticed that I had been bleeding
For how long I didn't know (Everything happened in a flash and survivor accounts are just like this, there was a flash and nobody even knew what the f happened)
What was this, I thought, that struck me?
What kind of weapons have they got?
The softest bullet ever shot (totally obvious....a single bomb dropped from one plane, slowly making its way down to the ground)
The rest of the song goes on to allude to the end of the war and even the "atom- mania" that swept the nation in the late 1940s/1950s even using phrases such as "chain reaction". The end simply says that "in reality, there was no reaction" which if you have ever read the book "Hiroshima" pretty much sums it up.
Additionally, if you are really not convinced by now, listen closley to the beginning and ending of the song as it pitter/patters in the sound of a Geiger Counter, which is a tool used to measure radiation.
The rest of the album, I don't know if any of that is in reference to the atomic bomb, but it seems like it might be more about the world shifting under foot.
i think of major drug companies hoping for a treatment to the disease vs. a cure and the vanguard of the drug company (head honcho) is lobbying the scientists to get on board with his profiteering agenda.
On a completely different note, I think the "their just humans with wives and children" line, when combined with the lyrics from "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton", is meant to say that the developers of a cure are not God.
Hooray for The Soft Bulletin
The lyrics and dramatic sounding music remind me of a comic book type scenario where the scientists are racing to invent some dangerous cure/device to avert an impending world ending crisis (comet striking earth/alien invasion/deadly virus etc), rather than actualy racing each other. They are obviously at great risk and may have to experiment on themselves to test the device/antidote at the cost of their own life, but the selfless heroes no choice, as it is to save the world and their loved ones!
Every time I hear this song I always have a picture of a couple of Clark Kent (6 foot 4, square chin) scientist types in white lab coats holding test tube and working with lazers. Sometimes the scientists are bitter rivals forced to work together to save the world. Sometimes they are respected colleagues racing in seperate labs, or in the same lab knowing that thety will both die.
Either way this is a great song
Also, many of them had bad home lives (or none at all) because they spent so much time in the lab.