So the lack of songs devoted to space flight by bands on indie labels is explained by…? There are plenty of bands given the opportunity to develop by their labels. Many of them have curiosity, ability and write very good lyrics. Still, not a great deal about space flight. I don’t think record labels can be blamed here.
Sam Stone: perhaps this is why we differ in opinion. I’m not a great Rush fan 
I stood outside and watched the Challenger blow up back in 1986. When I came back into the office to hear the news and find out what happened the song “Somewhere” was playing by Babs Streisand. So that song always reminds me of flight.
It sure fits the tragedy.
"I fly a starship across the universe divide
and when I reach the other side
I’ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
and I’ll be back again … and again … and again … "
“Highwayman”, Willie/Johnny/Waylon/Kris
There is plenty of positive music about spaceflight, but you won’t hear it on any radio station – it’s part of the underground genre of “filk,” science-fiction folk music, which is performed by fans at “filksings” at science-fiction conventions, and sometimes recorded and released on tapes and CD’s you won’t find at any music store but which you can order from special catalogs or over the Net. Filk tapes and CD’s are usually live recordings from performances at conventions, rarely studio recordings.
Filk is an acquired but highly addictive taste. It is music by nerds for nerds. It is purely amateur – nobody ever does it for the money. The musical quality is highly variable, as you might expect. It is highly unlikely that filk will ever become a commercial success outside the fannish community.
For a good intro, check out www.filk.com; Filk FAQ at http://home.earthlink.net/~kayshapero/filkfaq.htm; http://www.lovesong.com/people/keshlam/filk/whatfilk.html; and “Darn near all the filk on the Web” at http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/filk/filklink.html.
A prime example of pro-spaceflight filk is “Fire in the Sky” by Jordin Kare:
Prometheus, they say,
Brought God’s fire down to man
And we’ve caught it, tamed it, trained it
Since our history began!
Now we’re going back to heaven
Just to look Him in the eye,
And there’s a thunder 'cross the land
And a fire in the sky!
You can hear this on MP3 if you click on http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/2475/2475506.html.
You can link to a whole page of links to spacefilk at http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/filk/spacelnk.html.
Why hasn’t anyone put the poem High Flight to music? I realize that it’s not exactly about space flight, but it’s not so far a field from the subject matter to be counted out.
Oh, Jean Michel Jarre’s album Rendez-Vous was to have parts of it recorded in space by astronaut Ron McNair. Sadly, however, that was not to be after Ron was killed when Challenger exploded. Jarre dedicated the album to the Challenger crew.
Calling Occupants - Klatuu
Telstar - The Ventures (okay, this is intstrumental).
NASA’s website has a space themed song. You have to select the “Flash Feature” to hear it (and you’ll need a broadband connection), but it’s a piece of “trance” music that’s obviously space themed (and pretty good, IMHO).
Oh! :smack: And now that I think about it, Doubting Thomas’s song Come in Peace includes samples from the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still
Yes, there are some positive songs about space flight. But space is, quite simply, a scary place. It’s extremely alien, very dangerous, and the sheer scale of it is, as the Late Great Douglas Adams (May He Always Be With His Towel) would say, mind-boggling.
Posted by Mr. Excellent:
So? You can’t write uplifting songs about scary, mind-boggling things? Some of the best popular songs ever written are about wars; what could be scarier than that?
Moons of Jupiter by Scruffy the Cat
Wanna go to the moons of Jupiter
Seen the pictures in the magazines
Wanna go to the moons of Jupiter
Escape the political scenes
(Bouncy song, which goes on to describe the delights of wearing “silver helmets and shiny gloves.”)
Planet Claire by The B-52s
She came from Planet Claire
I knew she came from there
She drove a Plymouth Satellite
Faster than the speed of light
also, There’s a Moon in the Sky by The B-52s
If you’re lucky you get to ride in a gold meteorite
If you’re not, you get a mouth, a mouthful of red Kryptonite
You better move over
Here comes a Super-nova
Kryptonite- - -
Destination moon
Goofy upbeat song about space travel.
This one isn’t negative
The way I’ve interpreted World Party’s “Is It Like Today?”, I consider it to have a non-negative meaning.
Since the Dawn of Civilization, mankind’s search for for the answer to ‘who am I?’ and ‘why am I here?’ eventually lead him to the moon and space - where he finally meets the face of God.
Don’t ask me what the meaning of the glassless window is…for all I know, it’s a reference to an institution or insane asylum.
One of the things that occured to me is that a lot of song types have traditional roots. Songs developed around rail road workers because it helped everyone keep a certain tempo and rhythm while they worked, the same is true of a lot of other jobs. However, as industrialization has taken over industries, we’ve stopped doing that. So, we’re less musical as a society. Plus, actual spaceflight is in it’s infancy, and all but two of the participants in it have been highly trained specialists in the field, who were trained for specific missions and not doing the job on a daily basis.
I can’t believe it took me this long to remember this one.
"Riding on the Rocket" by Shonen Knife
*Riding on the rocket I wanna go to Pluto
Space foods are marshmallows, asparagus, ice cream, ooh
Blue eyed kitty cat said “Please let me go with you”
Iko, iko, everybody let’s go
Iko, iko, everybody let’s go
Iko, iko, everybody iko
Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars,
Uranus, Neptune Pluto and planet Earth
Getting in radio communication “Hello, hello”
Earth is like a little star “Hello, hello”
Shaking her hip, blue eyed cat dances the mambo
…*
It just doesn’t get any more positive than that.
It’s an instrumental track, but it’s fairly up-beat:
Badden Powell’s O astronauta.
Bossa Nova in space!
How about Pluto Drive by The Creatures?