My adult children are avid thrifters, and one of them came across a set of Field Guides and Golden Nature Guides and brought them over to show me. They were in remarkable condition and didn't smell musty at all. All from the 1950s and 1960s, they likely spent decades safe in a climate-controlled personal library. As a space nerd, I immediately picked up the Golden Nature Guide to Stars and thumbed through it.

Sure enough this one was a volume from the 1950s. The copyright shows 1956 and 1951.

I flipped to the page about The Sun. Something about this book tugged at my memory. I'd never owned one, and it was published way before I was born to be sure, but something about this being a Guide book reminded me of something. I started reading the facts about the Sun and stopped cold at this passage:

"The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas: a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees."

I had heard an interview with the band They Might Be Giants about songs from their Here Comes Science album. I've been a longtime TMBG fan and had bought and played their science album for my kids when they were little. I immediately read the passage alound and my oldest child's eyes grew wide. They knew it as a lyric to Why Does The Sun Shine.

According to Wikipedia, "The lyrics for the refrain appear verbatim in the 1951 Golden Nature Guide Stars. Here is a video of the song on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gjRx3o-BYZ4?si=-xCo-m8pzWX0JH6i

Indeed it does! It's a lucky find that we enjoyed reminiscing about.