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Down To Earth
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Wibble wibble acoustic guitar
space rock hawkwind heavy rock synth rock
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Heavy Space Rock, a bit progressive possibly in places.
This was a project I recorded in 1999-2000, expecting (and indeed achieving) no financial gain, fame or success. It sold a fabulous 9 copies on dear old mp3.com. Ah, the joys of last century technology- Cubase VST creaking along and crashing frequently on a steam driven 300MHz Pentium II... We won't see those days again. Thank God. The original intent was a kind of metallised space rock, kind of a metallised Hawkwind. I modelled the vocals very poorly indeed on those of Martin Walkyier (then of Skyclad), largely because I can't sing to save my life. What I learned was that I can't bark convincingly either. Also, strangely, despite the hundreds of hours I spent recording and tweaking these songs I was reluctant to lay down vocal tracks, and on more than one occasion I just left the guide vocal on the finished masterpieces. Which was just plain silly. Other memories that leap unbidden include the hopeless quest to make an AWE32 kick drum poke through the mix, and the frustration caused by the fact that, having had most of my gear stolen some time before, all I had to work with was a guitar, a microphone, and whatever the poor struggling PC could come up with (and thanks to Steve Watson for the loan of his keyboard, his compressor/limiter, his outboard reverb, his ears and his considerable patience). So anyway, here it is, in all of its naked glory. Be kind. It was only for fun.
Song Info
Charts
#20,877 today Peak #69
#4,433 in subgenre Peak #14
Author
Ian Bland
Rights
Bland
Uploaded
August 22, 2004
Track Files
MP3
MP3 3.8 MB 128 kbps 0:00
Story behind the song
Yes, it's that slow track in the middle of the album everyone looks forward to so much. More to the point, it's a shameless pastiche of early Hawkwind when Dave Brock still played acoustic guitar sometimes, and as such is pretty much a re-tread of "Space Is Deep" without the song craft. Also, it's a kind of daft song about a person in cryogenic suspension in a spacecraft that never left for its mission, eternally orbiting an earth that died below... and as such includes the immortal couplet "But then below me Earth expired, My rocket engines never fired," for which I should be hanged by the neck until very dead indeed. Anyway, wibbly synths, an 6-string acoustic trying very hard (and failing) to sound like a 12 string, and me doing wailing high-pitched "oooh" backing vocals. All the ingredients of a great track, utterly ruined by the ineptitude of the cook.
Lyrics
I've floated here ten thousand years, Locked in dreams and nightmare fears, Machinery keeps me alive, Entombed in steel and cold as ice, A golden sunrise every hour, Casts rays upon my ivory tower, The solar panels drink their fill, Extend my life against my will, Trapped in orbit round this wasteland planet of my birth, Now there's no way I can go back down to Earth, To journey into space so deep, I entered this cryonic sleep, But then below me Earth expired, My rocket engines never fired, Trapped in orbit round this wasteland planet of my birth, Now there's no way I can go back down to Earth, I've floated here ten thousand years, Locked in dreams and nightmare fears, Machinery keeps me alive...
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