[Verse 1]
Three oxygen atoms locked in a triangle spin,
Up where the air goes thin and the cold rushes in,
Sunlight splits them wide, UV rays collide,
Then they stitch back together, side by side,
Ninety thousand feet of chemistry on patrol,
A sunscreen made of breathing, a gas playing a role,
Forming, breaking, forming—it never holds one shape,
Catching poison light before it hits the cape.
[Chorus]
O-three, split and spin, the ozone game,
Forming and breaking, soaking up the UV flame,
Chlorine steals a bond, then slips away scot-free,
One atom, thousands lost—that's catalytic treachery,
Mend the sky, ban the can, let the layer heal,
This is the reaction that keeps us alive outside, so real.
[Verse 2]
Nineteen eighty-five, in Halley Bay's deep freeze,
Joe Farman watched his dials drop by slow degrees,
Spring over Antarctica, the readings wouldn't climb,
He checked the gear twice, thought he'd lost his time,
But the gap was real, a hollow stretched in blue,
Satellites had missed it—his numbers proved it true,
The news went worldwide, scientists took alarm,
A tear in Earth's own sunscreen was no small harm.
[Verse 3]
Spray cans full of chlorofluorocarbons, light and tame,
Drifting up for decades, nothing to reclaim,
UV light cracks them open, chlorine breaks its chain,
One free atom hunting ozone, again and again,
It steals an oxygen, forms chlorine monoxide bright,
Then lets go, free to hunt another ozone site,
A hundred thousand molecules one atom can erase,
That's the matchmaker's trick, catalysis setting pace.
[Chorus]
O-three, split and spin, the ozone game,
Forming and breaking, soaking up the UV flame,
Chlorine steals a bond, then slips away scot-free,
One atom, thousands lost—that's catalytic treachery,
Mend the sky, ban the can, let the layer heal,
This is the reaction that keeps us alive outside, so real.
[Bridge]
Nineteen eighty-seven, nations signed as one,
Said goodbye to CFCs, the damage could be undone,
Fridges changed their chemistry, spray cans found new ways,
Chemistry solved a problem that chemistry had made,
Decades on, the gap grew small, the layer stitched its seam,
Proof that we can listen when the data starts to scream.
[Chorus]
O-three, split and spin, the ozone game,
Forming and breaking, soaking up the UV flame,
Chlorine steals a bond, then slips away scot-free,
One atom, thousands lost—that's catalytic treachery,
Mend the sky, ban the can, let the layer heal,
This is the reaction that keeps us alive outside, so real.
[Outro]
Look up past the blue, there's a scar that's growing thin,
The sky remembers where the trouble once got in,
O-three, O-three, still spinning overhead,
A gas that stays unstable keeps the danger from the dead,
Farman's numbers, Montreal's pen, one quiet victory—
The reaction that keeps us alive outside is chemistry.