1. |
Prolog
01:38
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One day the sun will blink out
When all her fires have burned out
Lost like a cinder in the winter sky
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2. |
Starguide
05:20
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We have gone astray. By dead reckoning we’ve sailed
The North Star, our guide, now drifts from the needle’s pull
(Compass in hand, heaving the log)
This tale of a voyage, taken in centuries past
Now slips from my screen, as I turn to the star guide
(We, too, careen beyond measurement’s end)
Toward the unknown, what use now the astrolabe
As the glory we crave meets the terror we find
In his steady hand, the captain spares no detail
Having ventured this far, he knows there’s no turning back
(He alone carries all, I am lost in his thoughts)
Toward the unknown, what use now the astrolabe
As the glory we crave meets the terror we find
They whisper when they think I sleep
We’ll never see home again
He’ll risk our lives to make his fame
The moon will rise in blood tomorrow
The ocean beneath as vast as the sky
Unequal am I to the workings of the cosmos
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3. |
Black Hole
05:25
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I seem to be balanced these days on your event horizon
As if gravity has yielded to desire
I haven’t given up on you, tho sometimes I’m tempted to say
I’m leaving now, good luck and so long
Inside your mind the galaxies whirl
Behold the life of ideas in four dimensions
But beneath the canopy of numbers
You seem to shrink, like a star imploding
Leaving a hole in space, from which nothing escapes
There was a time I could listen to you for hours
Beneath the cloisters the only thing real was us
That night it snowed, I couldn’t walk away
And I thought, this is what the planets must feel
Oh, you shone so bright
A hole in space, from which nothing escapes
Neither mass nor light, a singular place
You know the truth, you say; it lies like a lamb beneath your fingers
And every searching arc of your pen brings forth its flesh
But all I see is a lifeless screed
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4. |
Together on Mars
04:50
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We’ll sell the house and ditch the car, what have we got to lose?
There’s nothing left for us here
You can write, and then at night we’ll sit and watch the moons
As they rise above the Valles Marineris
And tho it’s pretty far away, once we get there, I’m sure
We won’t regret a single day
Let’s start a new life, together on Mars
They’ll supply the transport and in time we’ll help them build
The fabric of the new frontier
With gleaming towers and crystal domes, no mini-malls in sight
A testament to harmony and peace
Let’s start a new life, together on Mars
New husband, new wife, a planet that’s ours
And if you fear you might be sad, consider this
Is there really anyone here you would miss?
I heard it on the news — twenty years or more, I guess
Before they start that colony on Mars
For us then, it’ll come too late, missed out again
Maybe we should relocate to Spain
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5. |
In the Street
06:45
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How lovely
Come see how lovely
In the street a star has fallen; and a masked man
To see what inside her is burning
I am before a miracle —who dares deny it—
How lovely
Come see how lovely
In the street a star has fallen, and the people, astonished, have formed a circle
To watch her die amid dazzling celestial gasps
I am before a miracle —who dares deny it—
In the middle of the street a star has fallen
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6. |
Proxima B
04:13
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Orbiting Proxima Centauri
They’ve found a planet they call Proxima B
It’s a lot like earth perhaps, or maybe not
These things are hard to discern, from 4.3 light years away
Still I wonder whether there’s someone like you
Someone to talk to, out there on Proxima B
If only you weren’t so far away
Here in the orbit of a mid-sized star, what can I do?
To put things in perspective, I’m but a speck of dust
Floating in nothingness, reading the news
Trillions of stars in billions of galaxies
Time stretching eons, a world full of empty words
And fearful minds
Here in the orbit of a mid-sized star, how alone we are
And whether or not you exist, what can I do?
I’m reminded of Emmanuel Kant
The unknowable essence of things, untouchable truth
Dressed up in fabric woven of gold
The stars spin around me now
And all around you
As if we were one of the same kind
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7. |
Farm on Mars
06:42
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I could have stayed in Nevada, no-one to know my name
But I carry the seed of the nomad
I passed the physical, they paid me three months in advance
Another space cruise docked today, beyond the ridge I watched it land
Tonight they’ll light up Olympus
I miss the quiet times, the dark night skies
I walk the red lime fields beneath the cool thin sun
A moon in each hand of my outstretched arms
Josie comes for harvest, regular as clockwork
Once a month we haul the picker, spin it out along the verdant rows
I walk the red lime fields beneath the cool thin sun
A moon in each hand of my outstretched arms
There’s dust on my shoes, dust on my cuff
Dust on my heart, nothing but dust
There was poster in the lobby of the Flamingo Motel
I took a napkin from the bar: Farm on Mars (Will Train)
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8. |
Not Alone
05:51
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My father served in Vietnam
Came home a different man, they said
Clear nights he’d sit out on the roof
As a young girl, to me he seemed
To overflow with emptiness, a point of no return
All he wanted was to see with his own eyes
Clear nights he’d sit out on the roof, staring at the sky
The scriptures he would quote, a wheel within a wheel
Have they born witness to our hapless trudge from swamp to Walmart
Clear nights he’d sit out on the roof, staring at the sky
Hoping to see for himself what he believed to be true
That we are not alone
He would have loved that story in the New York Times
The office at the Pentagon, the pilots who saw the alien spacecraft
Sensible men, not prone to delusion
Clear nights he’d sit out on the roof, staring at the sky
Waiting to see for himself what countless others had seen
That we are not alone
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9. |
Change of State
03:46
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According to Malaparte, the horses fled
Panicked by the fire that licked their heels like Satan’s breath
Leningrad was burning as they rushed toward the lake
And their hooves beset the water that froze about them
Horses once, now no longer, having been through that change of state
Snowflakes descended on the Leningrad estates
Containing each a microbe that had been carried into space
Inexorably falling on the night that knew no end
Returning to the battlefield to cover up the dead
Soldiers once, now no longer, having been through that change of state
And like a sable gown bedecked with gold, the universe enfolds us
Holding her secrets soft within, dark and agnostic
Subject to instantaneous changes
Like Malaparte’s lake the early universe congealed
Cooling and expanding into vast galactic wheels
Now blinking its majesty, we know one thing for sure
Sooner or later it’ll take another form
Existing once, now no longer, having been through that change of state
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10. |
Heretic Astronomer
04:58
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Draw me down another flagon of ale, I need to wash away the dust
Watch the pretty girls with their pretty smiles, as they pass me by
They hung the poor wretch upside down, his beard now white as bone
The sun comes up, and the sun goes down
I’ve lived the life of a simple man, with my simple mind
Never strayed to the wild frontier, where heresy resides
Like a duck for the cardinal, they made him ready for their fire
The sun comes up, and the sun goes down
Tonight I’ll go carousing, beneath the stars that pierce the dark
The flames that set him free burn bright, I couldn’t bear to watch
He really was an insufferable man, but we all have our flaws
Oh, the sun comes up, and the sun goes down
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11. |
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40,000 miles an hour, and slowly, inch by inch
Inexorably speeding on our course for outer space
We monitor the solar winds grown ragged now and faint
And gravity, that fading, futile force, all but escaped
Never has a person come this far
No turning back, the booster’s long since gone
And when you get to hear this across the wastes of time
At the solar system’s last extent, we’ll be entering the void
Saturn’s rings and Neptune’s moons, those once majestic friends
Reveal themselves as distant specks upon the camera lens
That pale blue dot, I think, must be the earth
In endless night, the planet of my birth
If you get to hear this across the wastes of time
Sitting at your console, or sipping at your wine
Yes, any day the readings say we will have passed beyond
The solar system’s last extent, we’ll be entering the void
What became of the sun’s heat in August, the smell of urine on a Sunday morning
And you, you, my love, sunburned and annoyed
If you ever hear this across the wastes of time
Sitting at your console, or sipping at your wine
Yes, any day the readings say we will have passed beyond
The solar system’s last extent
We’re at the brink, transmission sent, we’re entering the void
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12. |
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To my surprise I have landed on a planet so cold
That the seas shine like jewels
The Gethenians come forth, and alone for years
I succumb to the lightness and weep
In the city’s cocoon, they unwrap the layers
To reveal neither man nor woman, a race evolved
Light is the left hand of darkness
These two are one
They lie together, like lovers
At the end and the way
As the days go by I grow slack, seduced by the glow
Though mistrust assails. Am I envoy, insurgent, or both?
Light is the left hand of darkness
These two are one
They lie together, like lovers
At the end and the way
He who I mistrust, I must love
Who has forestalled would now free me
I open to him my mind, as we flee
Across the expanding tracts of ice
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13. |
Epilog
03:09
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When the frost takes the last grain
And the candle gutters like the sun
I will kiss you one more time
I will hold your face
I will savor your tears
For what are we?
What are we?
Nothing but the dust of stars
When the frost takes the last grain
And the candle gutters the sun
I will kiss you one more time
As when the universe began
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Art Schop Brooklyn, New York
Contemporary rock that's "a mixture of Murder Ballads, Songs from a Room, and Hunky Dory."
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