SFF Song of the Week
Mike Carey is an inspiration to all lovers of comic books and fantasy. His credits range from X-Men comics to Constantine epics, to magnificent original graphic novels like God Save the Queen. As a novelist he has created a highly original protagonist, free lance exorcist Felix Castor, who walks the streets of London vanquishing and exorcising evil, er, sometimes with the use of a tin whistle. Mike's also one of the nicest guys in SF.
I love his choice for today - my generation too! - but this particular song it's WAY too long to feature on this blog, or even on YouTube. So I feature an excerpt, with a link for you to buy the album if you want to hear more.
Mike Carey writes:
Supper’s Ready Part 2
In Supper's Ready (from their 1972 album, Foxtrot), Genesis created a sprawling sci-fi epic and played it out in the space of a suite of songs whose combined length is more than twenty minutes. Beginning with a first inkling of disaster to come when the narrator sees something alien and inexplicable in his lover's face, it escalates through total war, millenarian cults, extreme body modification and finally the end of the world - although we're not sure whether this is devastation or redemption.
The lyrics are elliptical, and it's never possible to paraphrase exactly what's going on, but the orchestration of emotion throughout is amazing, as is the bravura finish, which swipes the imagery of the Book of Revelations and puts it through its paces - so that when we come full circle to the announcement that "supper's ready", it's the supper of the king of kings, announced by the angel who stands in the sun. Pretentious? Maybe. But back in 1974 (which was when I discovered the album) that didn't put me off at all. I just loved it for the insane head-trip it was. Moreover, it paved the way for the greater glories of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway two years later - The Lamia, Lilywhite Lilith, The Colony of Slippermen et al.
Yes, kids, that's how old I am. I remember when Genesis weren't boring...
Lovers' Leap
Walking across the sitting-room, I turn the television off.
Sitting beside you, I look into your eyes.
As the sound of motor cars fades in the night time,
I swear I saw your face change, it didn't seem quite right.
...And it's hello babe with your guardian eyes so blue
Hey my baby don't you know our love is true.
Coming closer with our eyes, a distance falls around our bodies.
Out in the garden, the moon seems very bright,
Six saintly shrouded men move across the lawn slowly.
The seventh walks in front with a cross held high in hand.
...And it's hello babe your supper's waiting for you.
Hey my baby, don't you know our love is true.
I've been so far from here,
Far from your warm arms.
It's good to feel you again,
It's been a long long time. Hasn't it?
The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man
I know a farmer who looks after the farm.
With water clear, he cares for all his harvest.
I know a fireman who looks after the fire.
Can't you see he's fooled you all.
Yes, he's here again, can't you see he's fooled you all.
Share his peace,
Sign the lease.
He's a supersonic scientist,
He's the guaranteed eternal sanctuary man.
Look, look into my mouth he cries,
And all the children lost down many paths,
I bet my life you'll walk inside
Hand in hand,
gland in gland
With a spoonful of miracle,
He's the guaranteed eternal sanctuary.
We will rock you, rock you little snake,
We will keep you sad and warm.
Ikhnaton And Itsacon And Their Band Of Merry Men
Wearing feelings on our faces while our faces took a rest,
We walked across the fields to see the children of the West,
But we saw a host of dark skinned warriors
standing still below the ground,
Waiting for battle.
The fight's begun, they've been released.
Killing foe for peace...bang, bang, bang. Bang, bang, bang...
And they're giving me a wonderful potion,
'Cos I cannot contain my emotion.
And even though I'm feeling good,
Something tells me I'd better activate my prayer capsule.
Today's a day to celebrate, the foe have met their fate.
The order for rejoicing and dancing has come from our warlord.
How Dare I Be So Beautiful?
Wandering in the chaos the battle has left,
We climb up the mountain of human flesh,
To a plateau of green grass, and green trees full of life.
A young figure sits still by a pool,
He's been stamped "Human Bacon" by some butchery tool.
(He is you)
Social Security took care of this lad.
We watch in reverence, as Narcissus is turned to a flower.
A flower?
Willow Farm
If you go down to Willow Farm,
to look for butterflies, flutterbyes, gutterflies
Open your eyes, it's full of surprise, everyone lies,
like the fox on the rocks,
and the musical box.
Yes, there's Mum & Dad, and good and bad,
and everyone's happy to be here.
There's Winston Churchill dressed in drag,
he used to be a British flag, plastic bag, what a drag.
The frog was a prince, the prince was a brick, the brick was an egg,
the egg was a bird.
(Fly away you sweet little thing, they're hard on your tail)
Hadn't you heard?
(They're going to change you into a human being!)
Yahoo, we're happy as fish and gorgeous as geese,
and wonderfully clean in the morning.
We've got everything, we're growing everything,
We've got some in
We've got some out
We've got some wild things floating about
Everyone, we're changing everyone,
you name them all,
We've had them here,
And the real stars are still to appear.
ALL CHANGE!
Feel your body melt;
Mum to mud to mad to dad
Dad diddley office, Dad diddley office,
You're all full of ball.
Dad to dam to dum to mum
Mum diddley washing, Mum diddley washing,
You're all full of ball.
Let me hear you lies, we're living this up to the eyes.
Ooee-ooee-ooee-oowaa
Momma I want you now.
And as you listen to my voice
To look for hidden doors, tidy floors, more applause.
You've been here all the time,
Like it or not, like what you got,
You're under the soil (the soil, the soil),
Yes, deep in the soil (the soil, the soil, the soil, the soil!).
So we'll end with a whistle and end with a bang
and all of us fit in our places.
Apocalypse In 9/8 (Co-Starring the delicious talents of Gabble Ratchet)
With the guards of Magog, swarming around,
The Pied Piper takes his children underground.
Dragons coming out of the sea,
Shimmering silver head of wisdom looking at me.
He brings down the fire from the skies,
You can tell he's doing well by the look in human eyes.
Better not compromise.
It won't be easy.
666 is no longer alone,
He's getting out the marrow in your back bone,
And the seven trumpets blowing sweet rock and roll,
Gonna blow right down inside your soul.
Pythagoras with the looking glass reflects the full moon,
In blood, he's writing the lyrics of a HIP brand new tune.
And it's hey babe, with your guardian eyes so blue,
Hey my baby, don't you know our love is true,
I've been so far from here,
Far from your loving arms,
Now I'm back again, and babe it's gonna work out fine.
As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs (Aching Men's Feet)
Can't you feel our souls ignite
Shedding ever changing colours, in the darkness of the fading night,
Like the river joins the ocean, as the germ in a seed grows
We have finally been freed to get back home.
There's an angel standing in the sun, and he's crying with a loud voice,
"This is the supper of the mighty One",
The Lord of Lords,
King of Kings,
Has returned to lead His children home,
To take them to the new Jerusalem.
Download from Amazon here.
This week's song comes from my fellow Orbit author Mike Cobley, author of widescreen SF epics Seed of Earth and The Orphaned World, numerous short stories, and the Shadowkings trilogy. Mike and I shared a magazine feature recently when a British weekend magazine published a list of presents suitable for gadget fiends...and we both got our books on the shelves, next to some utterly ridiculous gadgets.
Mike Cobley writes:
Last century, at about the 4/5ths mark, I had just been sorrowfully yet firmly ejected from Strathclyde University (BSc Production Engineering & Beer Bar Lager), having failed to pass the 2nd year exams. Such are the twists and turns of life's twisty turny laundry chute. However, I had got involved with the entertainments department at Strathclyde Students Union, persuading 1st the internal radio station to let me have a stab at playing records and, like, being a DJ, man! before becoming an official Ents crew member (in as much as any of us reprobates were, like, official). This was 1979, so it was a pre-digital and inherently grimy world of discos and gigs and guzzling tins of lager (free to Ents staff, heh heh) and smoking Benson & Hedges (this was before my body staged a revolt about a decade later). So anyway, amongst the very many now-classic choons and toetappers that passed across the twin decks (usually a Citronic Mk2 with Garrard turntables) was - Space Station No 5, as sung by Sammy Hagar, from the live album 'Loud and Clear'.
The song originally appeared on Montrose's self-titled album, out in 1973. But when I first heard it, about 1980, this was of course years and years before Babylon 5 was even so much as a twinkle in JM Straczynski's eye. But listening to it again soon after B5 hit the screens it struck me as the natural, if unofficial, theme song for the series. The original album version is cool in its way, but the live version just completely tears loose, hammers along with a breathless urgency. Entirely fantastic.
Start, with the sun
And move on out
The future's in the skies above
The heavens unfold
And a new star is born
Space and time makin' love
Chorus:
Oh what a time we had
Living on the ground
I've moved to station Number 5
See you next time around,
Next time around
As far you want, as close as you need
It's all in the mind, you know
This old world hasn't really seen it's day
It's here, time to go
Chorus
Remember when it was so clear
We were young, but the memory still remains
To pick fruit from a tree
Fish from the seas
Now nothing's left here, but the stains
Well I can't cry no more
Can only be glad
There's other places we can be
If the time suits you right
I'm leaving tonight
Come fly away
With me!
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
Oh, yeah
Start, with the sun
And move on out
The future's in the skies above
The heavens unfold
A new star is born
Space and time makin' love
Chorus
It's a busy week this week on Debatable Spaces...further down the page, the great Basterds debate still rages...and tomorrow we have a guest blog from screenwriter and co-founder of the Red Planet Prize, Danny Stack. And today:
It's this! A delightful, fall-around-on-the-floor laughing song choice from Stuart Angell McGregor, screenwriter and blogger, who is a regular contributor to this site's TV and Movie and Book Zones. (Look out for his marvellous analysis of The X-Files, a wonderfully comprehensive and witty account of the classic show.)
Stuart Angell McGregor writes:
Years after Laika - the perky and bright-eyed soviet space dog - barked his last and burned up a hero in earth's atmosphere, Gerry Anderson created Fireball XL5, a children's show in which goggle-eyed space puppet Colonel Steve Zodiac patrolled the stars in the eponymous super rocket.
XL5 was a fun, wobbly-stringed, space western with only one really exceptional element to call its own: 'Fireball', the theme that swung proudly over the show's closing credits. Fireball wasn't so much crooned, more sensually exuded from the pores of chocolate-voiced Australian Don Spencer.
XL5 began in '62, and ended a year later, the exact time that American astronauts Alan Sheppard and ol' John Glenn were freewheeling, for the first time, way up there, in machines held together with little more than pure hope and bubblegum.
And, ultimately, that's what holds Spencer's Fireball together, too - not that cool retro sound you can imagine spooling easy and smooth from the glossy speakers of some Kubrickian space station - but hope, the dreams of small men wanting to touch, wanting to be, something far bigger.
When I was a mere slip of a thing, my Dad would sing me to sleep with his own garbled and half-remembered version of this song. And though he could never quite carry the tune far enough, and forever fiddled with the tips of his cigarette yellow fingers, that glorious and hopeful chorus always managed to come out just right.
'My heart would be a fireball
A fireball
Every time I gaze into your
Starry eyes'
Amazing, no?
Now, there's nothing left to do but pass the space martins, and dance.
I wish I was a spaceman,
the fastest guy alive
I'd fly you ‘round the universe.
In Fireball XL5.
Way out in space together.
Conquerors of the sky.
My heart would be a fireball.
A fireball.
Every time I gaze into your starry eyes.
We’d take a path to Jupiter and maybe very soon.
We’d cruise along the Milky Way and land upon the Moon.
To a wonderland of stardust.
We’ll zoom our way to mars.
My heart would be a fireball.
A fireball.
And you would be my Venus of the stars.
But though I’m not a spaceman
Famous and renowned
I’m just a guy that’s down to earth
With both feet on the ground
It’s all imagination
I’ll never reach the stars
My heart is still a fireball
A fireball
Every time I gaze into your starry eyes
Soon after I first became a published Orbit author, I shared a book reading session at Alt Fiction in Derby with Stephen Hunt and Brian Ruckley - two delightful and highly gifted authors.
And today's SFF Song of the Week is from Brian - who writes compelling heroic epic fantasy among other things, and who sets his books in a godless universe so bleak and violent that's a surprise to find what a pleasant man he really is. Look out for his first three books - Winterbirth, Bloodheir, and Fall of Thanes.
Brian Ruckley writes:
Here’s some musical fantasy from a creator who was himself a unique, larger than life, vaguely numinous presence in the last quarter of the 20th century: Freddie Mercury. Lots of Queen’s songs have a slightly science fictional or fantastical vibe – elaborate concoctions fuelled by a shifting, vivid, sometimes surreal imagination – but The Seven Seas of Rhye is a rather different beast.
This is explicitly epic, secondary world fantasy fiction done as a brief, grandiose rock song. Rhye and its seas existed, but only in the minds of Freddie Mercury and his sister, who dreamed it up together when they were children. Others might settle for imaginary friends; they invented a whole world, and stories to inhabit it. Rhye is the setting for several early Queen songs (including the brilliantly titled Ogre Battle, which sounds like it ought to be a D&D soundtrack), but The Seven Seas of Rhye is the (modest) hit that immortalized it. And with lyrics like these:
Be gone with you, you shod and shady senators
Give out the good, leave out the bad evil cries
I challenge the mighty titan and his troubadours
And with a smile I'll take you to the seven seas of Rhye
Doesn’t it sound as though there’s a hell of a book in there somewhere?
Fear me you lords and lady preachers
I descend upon your Earth from the skies
I command your very souls you unbelievers
Bring before me what is mine, the seven seas of Rhye
Can you hear me you peers and privy counsellors
I stand before you naked to the eyes
I will destroy any man who dares abuse my trust
I swear that you'll be mine, the seven seas of Rhye
Sister, I live and lie for you
Mister, do and I'll die
You are mine, I possess you, I belong to you forever
Storm the master-marathon, I'll fly through
By flash and thunder-fire I'll survive, I'll survive, I'll survive I'll survive, I'll survive
Then I'll defy the laws of nature and come out alive
Then I’ll get you
Be gone with you, you shod and shady senators
Give out the good, leave out the bad evil cries
I challenge the mighty titan and his troubadours
And with a smile I'll take you to the seven seas of Rhye
I shared a panel last October at the Sci-Fi London Festival in Greenwich with the delightful Paul Raven, a writer, blogger, webguy and music critic, who has chosen a wonderfully evocative piece for this week. Paul is:
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Futurismic - near-future science fiction webzine
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Dreaded Press - rock music reviews webzine
Publicist and PR officer for PS Publishing - the UK's foremost boutique genre publisher
Paul clearly has several doppelgangers to get all that done, and one of them wrote this:
Paul Raven writes:
Heavy rock and science fiction have a relationship that goes way back, long before I was even born... though, truth be told, both fields of endeavour had a habit of showing one another in the worst possible light. Or maybe that's just hindsight, my own generational lenses distorting what went before like a fun-house mirror, making serious statements into figures of fun through the heat-haze of time?
But I digress... I have a tendency to ramble, you see. Perhaps that's why I'm so fond of sprawling epic music? Sure, I like a short sharp blast of punk energy or heavy metal power as much as the next man, but given the choice I'll always pick the long tunes with the slow build – the tunes with dynamics, atmosphere, and a certain mind-expanding hugeness. Music with space, in other words, whether that space be inner or outer (or both). Few bands fit the bill quite as well as Mancunian three-piece Amplifier, whose lyrics often reflect the science fictional feel of their music.
And no song by Amplifier fits the bill better than “UFOs”. Like most of their songs, “UFOs” has no distinct narrative or story, but the lyrics and the music combined do something that very few musicians have ever managed for me – they evoke sensawunda. Remember that first addictive experience with science fiction when you were young? That first time you put down a book with the feeling that you'd had your head expanded to more ably contain the ideas and vistas it handed you? That first time you realised how small a thing you really are, in a universe so inconceivably immense? That's sensawunda, at least by my definition, and no matter how many times I listen to “UFOs” I get that same feeling of inner expansion, as the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like missiles preparing to launch, and my heart skips erratic like an irregular quasar thumping out its mysterious message from a million million million years in the past.
But enough of my chatter – let's let the band do the talking. Two things to note: firstly, “UFOs” is not a pop song, or even a 'regular' rock song in format. There is no instant hook, no verse-chorus-verse-bridge-verse-chorus-coda structure. It's a slow builder, a journey, a trip – so give it time to grow. The pay-off is worth it, I promise you.
Secondly, there's no 'proper' video – Amplifier are too small a band to have videos for their more obscure album tracks – but the beauty of their style is that you can (and should) provide your own, projecting what you hear onto the deep black screen of your own closed eyelids. So set aside eight minutes, crank the volume as loud as you can without distressing your neighbours, press play, and then sit back with your eyes closed. “We'll all be waiting for you here.”
Oh, have you heard the news from outer space?
It seems that somewhere in the ancient dunes
of silver moons, like giant spoons lie dusty tombs
of Martian men in U-boat pens...
and they will come to kill us all.
'Cause our plastic factories
and our catastrophic theories
are all we have / we live our lives from paper bags, and
I know better than you know -
I'll kill you 'cause you drive too slow!
Aggressive instincts will do us in, yeah...
just give us the chance for us to prove it ourselves.
(Don't you know that all machines sink?
Do you know they sing as they think?
Although their bodies are electric...
Don't you know that all machines think?)
So we laid back and we watched space revolve
the bodies of astronauts long cold
blinking like lonely satellites...
Where we left vapour trails through cotton skies -
come on, let's scratch the heavens one last time!
'Cause we're all sinking in the sunshine
and though you'd love to stay,
well, you said you must be on your way
to where the rainbows and UFOs
fall ten at a time
in a shower of glitter and gold...
… we'll all be waiting for you here.
Note from Phil: Paul suggested closing your eyes, but I like to listen to the track while looking at this:
Here's a truly fabulous song choice from urban fantasy author Nicole Peeler, whose debut novel Tempest Rising is a witty and sensual thriller about a selkie in New England. Nicole is a Professor in her spare time (!), but wears her learning lightly. I love selkies, and have spent a lot of time in Scotland where they mostly live. And I always thought that selkies would kick the asses of vampires and werewolves; and so it proves.
Nicole Peeler writes:
Hello! Nicole Peeler, here. For those (ten) of you who know me, you know that I write for Orbit books, much like Philip. Only I write the dreaded . . . urban fantasy! Now, I am well aware that there is an element of more hard core sci-fi/fantasy readers who think urban fantasy consists of a bunch of women dressed like leather daddies running around with swords, alternately decapitating monsters and bonking vampires.
And, admittedly, this description is often accurate.
That said, I write a slightly different kind of urban fantasy. I write UF that’s based on my love of mythology, and one of my all-time favorite myths is that of the selkie. The very first time I read a selkie myth--I think I was twelve--I was transfixed. And not only with the beautiful selkie maiden, but especially with the idea of the half human children she inevitably leaves behind after finding her seal skin and returning to the sea.
Ultimately, these selkie legends are very much ones of victimization. The selkie maid is victimized when her skin is stolen; the human husband is victimized when his wife leaves him (and sometimes, if rarely, he doesn’t understand why because he never understood the import of the skin he’d found); and the children are victimized by losing their mother.
Which leads me to Feist, and her song, “Sea Lion Woman.” In many ways, this song is the delicious, grrrrl power, feminist answer to the selkie myth. For unlike her selkie cousin, the seal woman, Feist’s “Sea Lion Woman” is anything but a victim. Just drinking a cup of tea, she makes a rooster crow!
And you know what else they call a rooster. . .
I imagine Feist’s sea lion woman as the Black Widow version of my beloved selkie myth. The seal woman takes off her skin, and some man comes and steals it. The sea lion woman, however, takes off her skin, dons some pretty dresses and she does the calling, hoping the men who answer know what to do. And the ones who don’t? They get a knife in the back.
Those sea lion women are fierce, yo.
Sea lion woman
She drink coffee
Sea lion woman
She drink tea
And a rooster crows
Sea lion woman
She drink coffee
She drink tea
And a rooster crows
Sea lion woman
Dressed in red
Smile at the man
When you wake up in his bed
Sea lion woman
Dressed in black
Wink at the man
Then stab him in his back
Sea lion woman
She drink coffee
She drink tea
And a rooster crows
Sea lion woman
Dressed in white
Marry the man
And you'll spend a long sweet life
Sea lion woman
Dressed in green
Silver lining and golden seams
Sea lion woman
Dressed in blue
Call on the man
And hope he knows what he can do
Sea lion...
Sea lion woman
She drink coffee
She drink tea
And a rooster crows
Sea lion woman
She drink coffee
She drink tea
And a rooster crows
Sea lion woman
Dressed in the blue
Call on the man
And hope he knows what he can do
Sea lion woman
Dressed in red
Smile at the man
When you wake up in his bed
Sea lion woman....
Here's this week's song choice from Alastair Reynolds. Alastair - author of Revelation Space, Chasm City, House of Suns and many more wonderful books - is, in the view of many of us, pretty much the definitive modern science fiction writer, brimming with ideas and also with humanity. He's also Welsh. ('ray!)
Alastair's SFF Song of the Week is Wings by the Fall, a tale of time travel and time paradoxes.
Alastair Reynolds writes:
I've loved The Fall for about twenty years. I don't think there's any one particular period of their music that I like more than another but "Wings" is undoubtedly one of my all-time favorites. It's from the early Brix era, when the group's music was starting to becone slightly more poppy, or as poppy as it's ever going to get given Smith's unique vocal approach, the relentlessly lo-fi production and the ever present emphasis on repetition. "Wings" pretty much encapsulates everything that's great about the group, though. It's got a fantastically catchy riff, mind-bending sci-fi time-travel lyrics, and as always there's some great dead-pan humour. "I paid them off with stuffing from my wings", indeed. And the video is superb.
Day by day.
The moon gains on me.
Day by day.
The moon gains on me.
Purchased pair of flabby wings.
I took to doing some hovering.
Here is a list of incorrect things.
Hovered mid-air outside a study.
An academic needed his chin,
Sent in the dust of some cheap magazines.
His academic rust, could not burn them up.
Recruited some gremlins.
To get me clear of the airline routes.
I paid them off with stuffing from my wings.
They had some fun with those cheapo airline snobs.
The stuffing loss made me hit a timelock.
I ended up in the eighteen sixties.
I’ve been there for one hundred and twenty five years.
A small alteration of the past. can turn time into space.
Ended up under ardwick bridge.
With some veterans from the u.s. civil war.
They were under irish patronage.
We shot dead a stupid sergeant,
But I got hit in the crossfire.
The lucky hit made me hit a time lock.
But, when I got back.
The place I made the purchase, no longer exists
I’d erased it under the bridge.
Day by day.
The moon came towards me
By such things.
The moon came towards me.
So now I sleep in ditches.
And hide away from nosey kids.
The wings rot and feather under me.
The wings rot and curl right under me.
A small alteration of the past.
Can turn time into space.
Small touches can alter more than a mere decade.
In this weekly Wednesday slot, expect great song choices from our resident BJs (blogjays), including Alastair Reynolds, Nicole Peeler, Lilith Saintcrow, and many more.
This week there's a great song choice from Tony Ballantyne, the wickedly inventive and thoroughly delightful author of The Robot Wars and The Recursion Trilogy. It's Experiment IV, by Kate Bush.
Tony Ballantyne writes:
Listen to the song and you realise this is an SF short story just waiting to be written. Try and write it (and I have done) and you realise you’re never going to do it as succinctly as Kate Bush manages. “From the painful sounds of mothers, to the terrifying screams…” This is how to make a sound that could kill someone.
Watch the video and you see actors Peter Vaughan, Richard Vernon, Dawn French and Hugh Laurie bring a whole new dimension to the story. Finally there’s Kate Bush herself doing her Raiders of the Lost Ark routine as she turns from angel temptress to demon nightmare as the sound is played to its helpless victim. Wonderful!
SF and Kate Bush. Throw in an accordion and you’d have my best night in ever.
We were working secretly
For the military.
Our experiment in sound,
Was nearly ready to begin.
We only know in theory
What we are doing:
Music made for pleasure,
Music made to thrill.
It was music we were making here until
They told us
All they wanted
Was a sound that could kill someone
From a distance.
So we go ahead,
And the meters are over in the red.
It's a mistake in the making.
From the painful cry of mothers,
To the terrifying scream,
We recorded it and put it into our machine.
Then they told us
All they wanted
Was a sound that could kill someone
From a distance.
So we go ahead,
And the meters are over in the red.
It's a mistake in the making.
It could feel like falling in love.
It could feel so bad.
But it could feel so good.
It could sing you to sleep
?"I'll bet my mum's gonna give me a little toy instrument!"?
But that dream is your enemy.
We won't be there to be blamed.
We won't be there to snitch.
I just pray that someone there
Can hit the switch.
But they told us
All they wanted
Was a sound that could kill someone
From a distance.
So we go ahead,
And the meters are over in the red.
It's a mistake we've made.
Hmm hmm hmm, hmm hmm hmm.
And the public are warned to stay off.
I was watching Kerrang the other day, as one does when there's an urgent deadline looming. And I found myself watching and hugely enjoying a video of Muse performing Supermassive Black Hole.
It made me think about how many rock songs have explicitly SF and Fantasy content. There's Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun, Bowie's Space Oddity, Gorillaz' Every Planet That We Reach is Dead (though I don't quite get the lyrics), Genesis's Lilywhite Lilith and Automatic's Monster (both fantasy!), Blue Oyster Cult's Astronomy, Bonnie Tyler's Faster than the Speed of Light (does that count?) and a whole host of others.
This is clearly a subject that requires serious academic study, but rather than getting off my arse and doing that, I'm simply going to nominate my own personal favourite SFF song - from dinosaur rockers Deep Purple, whose song Space Truckin' has enough SF content for a movie.
And over the next few weeks, I'm going to ask some friends to nominate their own suggestions for best SFF Song of the Week. So far I've got song choices from Tony Ballantyne, Alastair Reynolds, TV producer Archie Tait and several others. Watch this space...
Here's Purple. Beware, this is 10 minutes of 1970s virtuosic and very loud insanity. Lyrics follow the clip.
We had a lot of luck on Venus
We always had a ball on Mars
Meeting all the groovey people
We've rocked the Milky Way so far
We're dancing around the Borealis
We're space truckin' round the the stars
Come on let's go Space Truckin'
Remember when we did the moonshot
And Pony Trekker led the way
We'd move to the Canaveral moonstop
And everynaut would dance and sway
We got music in our solar system
We're space truckin' round the stars
Come on let's go Space Truckin'
The fireball that we rode was moving
But now we've got a new machine
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah the freaks said
Man those cats can really swing
They got music in their solar system
They've rocked around the Milky Way
They dance around the Borealis
They're Space Truckin' everyday
Come on!