[quote=“madsircool, post:13, topic:841326”]
Blue Oyster Cult Astronomy
[/QUOTE]I came to mention Clint Black’s cover from his D’lectrified album because there’s a story.
I was going to a friend’s home for dinner, where I understood Clint Black would be present. Not a huge country fan, and not wanting to be embarrassed, I scrambled around on YouTube, listening to as much of his work as I could find. I enjoyed some of his harmonica playing and I loved his cover of The Galaxy Song.
So, after a nice meal we were sitting around drinking and chatting. I brought up his harp playing and mentioned some of my favorite blues harp players. I was sort of surprised that he knew the artists I liked. Then, I mentioned that Galaxy was my favorite Clint Black song.
He laughed and slapped my back. Apparently my favorite was the favorite of everyone who wasn’t a country music fan. We all had a good laugh. Clint autographed a C Harmonica and gave it to me for being a good sport.
More than 40 posts, and no-one mentioned Bowie’s Life on Mars?
I’d argue that’s not a song about astronomy, it merely mentions mars in context of the emo girl complaining about wanting to get away.
My contribution:
Jethro Tull - Orion
Under the MIlky Way The Church
Great song - The Church - Under The Milky Way - YouTube
“Einstein On The Beach” - Counting Crows
“Airbag” - Radiohead
Another one that rhymes “stars” with “Mars” - Starsby Hum.
She thinks she missed the train to Mars
She’s out back counting stars
From almost four years ago, A Child’s Introduction To Outer Space.
The Wandering Stars
Mercury
Venus
Earth and Mars
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus
Neptune and Pluto!
The Wandering Stars!
Meet Space Pilot Jones
Meet Space Pilot Jones
His body, it looks like a barrel…
(the one about satellites)
Is it raining in Paris?
Will it snow in New York?
Excellent!
Many answers are casting a very wide net. Maybe I should have narrowed it to constellation songs. But then the thread would be a lot shorter.
I felt I had to start the thread because: **Eustacia **went to a dark-sky park with a telescope the other weekend. When she came back she asked me about the pronunciation of that constellation that looks like a W. I said /ˌkæsiəˈpiːə/, of course. She said someone had criticized another astronomer there for pronouncing it that way, insisting the stress accent should go on the 3rd instead of 4th syllable: /ˌkæsiˈoʊpiːə/. Well, that guy was wrong. So I wondered how Sara Bareilles had pronounced it, and I went and played the song loud. She adjusted the pronunciation to the melody and meter of the line: /kæsiˌoʊpiːˈɑː/. (Artistic license.) Because she put stress on the O, I speculated that the mispronunciation guy had gotten it from the song.
So anyway, ever since then the song has been stuck in my head, remaining extraordinarily persistent for much longer than the usual song-stuck-in-my-head. I started this thread out of desperation, hoping that externalizing it here might help get it out of my head. (Didn’t work.) I like the song, but too much is more than enough already. I’m going to listen to Tull’s “Orion” again and any other constellation song you guys come up with.
Eight-Foot Two, Solid Blue - Alan Sherman
Eight foot two, solid blue,
Five transistors in each shoe,
Has anybody seen my gal?
Lucite nose, rust-proof toes,
And when her antenna glows,
She’s the cutest Martian gal.
How about, “Aquarius,” by The Fifth Dimension?
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
(Far out, man!)
I’ve heard both pronunciations, long before anyone ever heard of Sara Bareilles. I think this is one of those things you pick up from the people around you, and you never bother checking.
Also by Blue Oyster Cult.
Blur - Far out. Great song.
“Stars Fell on Alabama,” 1934, about an 1833 Leonid meteor shower.
Jethro Tull also had a song called “Astronomy”.
B-52’s had “Hallucinating Pluto”.
Canadian prog group FM had a track called “Aldebaran”. A star name for those who didn’t know.
Aimee Mann’s “The Other End of the Telescope”.
Early (pre Steve Perry) Journey had a track called “Kohoutek”, after the comet of the same name.
I wrote a song for my friend in the early 1980s that began
PKS 200-300 yes you know it’s out there
In deepest outer space, whether or not, uh, you really care
But a wink from God’s eye was the making of this mighty quasar
Radiant mind life with the power of a billion stars
At the time, PKS 2000-330 was the most distant object known.
And the alternate / original lyrics to Echoes.
Planets meeting face to face
One to the other cry “how sweet
If endlessly we might embrace
A perfect union deep in space
If heaven might this once relent
And give us leave to shine as one
Our two lights here forever one light blended”
And in that longing to be one
The parting summons sound is drawn
“I see you’ve got to travel on
And on and on around the sun”
Brian Eno & John Cale: Spinning Away
XTC: We’re All Light