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The Green Hills of Earth Character
Rhysling
Status	Alive
Gender	Male
Species	Human
Origin	Ozark Mountains
Portrayed by	John Raitt Ken Williams (voice) Everett Sloane (voice)
First Appearance	The Green Hills of Earth
Profession	crewman, singer
Relatives
Special Features

Rhysling is the central character in Robert A. Heinlein's short story The Green Hills of Earth. He was referenced by characters in other novels and stories written by Heinlein, before and after The Green Hills of Earth was published.

Biography

"Noisy" Rhysling is an Ozark Mountains-born, accordion playing, off color ballad singing, blacklisted "Jetman" (a spaceship engine room crewman), on the Moon in the early twenty-first century. Captain Hicks, commander of the Goshawk, gives Rhysling one more chance and allows him to sign aboard his ship on a "Jovian loop trip"--a run to Mars and then out to the Asteroid Belt, to Jupiter and back.

En route, despite Rhysling's warning, Captain Hicks runs the Goshawk at top speed even as an atomic pile buckles. The pile explodes, blinding Rhysling. Rhysling is left on Mars, and takes up a life as a wandering minstrel. His blindness gives him a new humanity and compassion, and his songs become more mature.

Over the course of several decades, Rhysling, better known as "Rhysling, The Blind Singer of The Spaceways," bums around the Solar System, singing his songs for food and shelter in any port that will have him. His songs are collected in books and recordings, and he becomes a living legend, welcome to hitch free rides on spaceships. Still, Rhysling's most famous song vexes him. Try as he might, he cannot find a suitable final verse for "The Green Hills of Earth."

Now an old man, Rhysling wishes to return to Earth to die among his belovedly remembered "Green Hills." He hitches a ride from Venus Ellis Isle to Earth on the Falcon, despite the young captain's distaste for him. Shunned, Rhysling goes to the engine room to be in familiar surroundings. An accident, similar to the one that befell the Goshawk, occurs, and Rhysling is the only person left conscious or alive in the engine room.

He brings the engines under control, puts them back on-line by touch alone, but in the process exposes himself to deadly radiation. He calls the bridge and asks that a recorder be turned on. He records the final verse of "The Green Hills of Earth" as he dies.

List of songs and published collections

In addition to the several stanzas of "The Green Hills of Earth," Heinlein created several verses for various songs by Rhysling, and mentioned the titles of others, espcially those considered off color. He also included titles of collections, and noted, in universe, where some material was considered to have been added by later hands to Rhysling's original works.

Spellings and capitalizations are Heinlein's.

Songs:

• The Grand Canal (several verses, mature work)
• Jet Song (several verses, mature work)
• Dark Star Passing (title only, mature work)
• Berenice's Hair (title only, mature work)
• Death Song of a Wood's Colt (title only, mature work)
• The Captain is a Father to his Crew (the song that got Rhysling blacklisted; title only, off color ballad)
• Since The Pusher Met My Cousin (title only, off color ballad)
• That Red-Headed Venusburg Gal (title only, off color ballad)
• Keep Your Pants On, Skipper (title only, off color ballad)
• A Space Suit Built for Two (title only, off color ballad)

Collections of Rhysling's published works:

• The Grand Canal, and other Poems
• High and Far
• Songs of the Spaceways (published the week Rhysling died)
• UP SHIP! (considered by scholars to be not entirely Rhysling's work)

References in other Heinlein works

• In the 1973 novel Time Enough For Love, Lazarus Long recounts stories of the bar/bordello he ran on Mars. Rhysling was a familiar face, beloved by the prostitutes who worked there.

• "Rhysling, The Blind Singer of The Spaceways'" was the Mutie Joe-Jim Gregory's favorite poet in the 1941 short story Universe. This story was written six years before "The Green Hills of Earth."

• Bill Lermer, the protagonist of the 1950 novel Farmer in the Sky, finds himself humming a tune whose title he he cannot remember. He reckons it must be one of Rhysling's.

Portrayals on television and radio

• "The Green Hills of Earth" was adapted as an episode of the 1951 television series Out There. Rhysling was portrayed by Broadway musical theatre star John Raitt.

• Rhysling was voiced by Ken Williams in episodes of Dimension X (1950) and X Minus One (1955) based on the story. Tom Glazer provided Rhysling's singing voice in both programs.

• Everett Sloane gave voice and song to Rhysling in the version of the story broadcast on The CBS Radio Workshop in 1957.