"Mother Necessity" is a song in Schoolhouse Rock!, which is seen in America Rock. The song teaches the viewers about the American Inventors.
Lyrics[]
Mother Necessity
With her good intentions,
Where would this country be'
Without her inventions?'
Oh, things were rotten in the land of cotton
Until Whitney made the cotton gin.
Now old times there will soon be forgotten
For it did the work of a hundred men.
Mother Necessity, where would we be?
Mother Edison worked late each night.
It went well until the fading light.
Little Thomas Alva Edison said, "I'll grow up to be
A great inventor and I'll make a lamp to help my mommy see, Wowee!
What an excellent application of electricity!"
He worked hard and pulled the switch. He was smart and very rich.
Mother Necessity, help us to see.
Now, the mother of Samuel Morse
Always sent the lad out on a horse.
"Take a message to Ms. Peavy on the far side of the pike;
Spread the word about the quilting bee next Saturday night!"
Little Samuel started thinking of a way to send a message,
Though he never met a horse he didn't like. Uh!
Mother Necessity!
Elias, can you help me with my sewing?
Mother dear, I'll fulfill your fondest wishes.
Elias, how?
This machine I've made will keep your sewing really flowing.
In fact, we'll keep the whole nation in stitches. Ah!
Mother Necessity, where would we be?
Ring me on the Alexander Graham Bell.
Thank you Alexander for the phone.
I'd never get a date, I'd never get a job
Unless I had a telephone.
Mother Necessity!
"Orville, Wilbur, go outside this minute,
And there continue with your silly playing!
Take these plans and take those blueprints.
Take that funny looking thing,
Take that wheel, take that wing,
I can't hear a thing that Mrs. Johnson's saying.
Orville! Wilbur! Come back, boys! Orville! Wilbur!"
Mother Necessity, where would we be?
When Robert Fulton made the steamboat go,
When Marconi gave us wireless radio,
When Henry Ford cranked up his first automo,
When Samuel Slater showed us how factories go,
And all the iron and oil and coal and steel and Yankee don't you know,
They made this country really grow, grow, grow, grow,
With Mother Necessity and where would we be
Without the inventions of your progeny?
Trivia[]
- All four of the singers recorded their parts in different locations at different times and were mixed in New York.
- The lyrics that says Samuel Morse "never met a horse he didn't like" is a reference to Will Rogers' famous quotation "I never met a man I didn't like."
- Voted #20 of the top 25 favorite Schoolhouse Rock! songs.
Goofs[]
- Contrary to what is depicted in the song, the Wright Brothers sketched the airplane as adults and their mother was a supporter of their's.
- Robert Fulton did not invent the steamboat, he just improved the design of the true inventor, Alexander Hart.
- Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Edison didn't create the first lightbulb, he created the first functional incandescent lightbulb. The first was created by Humphry Davy seventy years prior to Edison.
- Guglielmo Marconi was not American; he was Italian.
- The first invention shown is Eli Whitney's cotton gin. It depicted white workers working it, although in reality black slaves mostly worked the machines. Not only that, but Eli Whitney did also not create the original cotton gin, the invention actually goes as far back as Buddhist India
- Samuel Morse got the idea of the telegraph from an encounter with Charles Thomas Jackson, who was knowledgeable in electromagnetism, while he was traveling by boat.
- Charles Fredrick Wiesenthal actually created the first sewing machine ninety years before Elias Howe created the first lockstitch sewing machine.
- Contrary to popular belief, Henry Ford did not invent the first ever automobile; only the first mass producible one.
- The song seems to imply that Samuel Slater invented factories, he just invented textile manufacturing factories.
