We Didn't Start The Science (lyrics)

I had the pleasure of performing a 3-song set at Barbara's birthday party at LPSC with the inimitable Pat McGovern joining me for this song.  I'm going to try and get a version of the LPSC Blues recorded, but also was asked to post the lyrics to We Didn't Start the Science.  I first wrote the words (but, you know, not the music) c. 2000 with a version posted here.  I did an update a couple of years ago (found here), but mostly just tweaked the words.  Since the real song ends in the 80s and devotes something like a half of a verse to the 1970s and 1980s I figured it was keeping closer to that spirit to remain 10 years out of date... 

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armstrong aldrin alan bean and apollo 17
taurus-littrow hadley rille  megaregolith
magma ocean ree giant impact theory
kreep tio2 kubrik's monolith

venus swingby mariner 10 caloris basin
chryse plains viking 2 and the sky on mars is blue
utopia and big joe carbon dioxide snow
jim pollack dry valleys ansmet que

we didn't start the science--we've always been learning since the world's been turning
we didn't start the science, if it weren't for newton we'd all be out looting

carl sagan cosmos mission lost at phobos
bow shock bart bok velikovsky
magellan sar side looking radar
aphrodite terra high emissivity
io sulfur volcanoes europa grooves callisto
ring spokes shepherd moons giant storms on neptune
halley vega giotto craf iue eso
pluto mutual events near earth asteroid defense


we didn't start the science--we've always been learning since the world's been turning
we didn't start the science, kepler's equation amazed all the nations

small comet grl lafos apl
arecibo and seti nicmos 55 cancri
sl9 string of pearls hga will not unfurl
posters still at lpi jovian atmosphere's too dry...

stable polar barchan dunes ida has a tiny moon
ulysses studies the sun pioneer 11
hyakutake hale bopp iras araki alcock
spacewatch linear armegeddon impact fear


we didn't start the science--we've always been learning since the world's been turning
we didn't start the science, galileo did it, the pope won't admit it

clementine dod geographos not to be
lpsc chili bash lunar observer crash
sample return aerobot venus is so freaking hot
window through all titan's haze hst is all the rage
chixculub h2so3 iridium kt boundary
martian bugs alha what else do i have to say?


we didn't start the science--we've always been learning since the world's been turning
we didn't start the science, there was gerard kuiper when we were in diapers

deep space 1 cassini exobiology
mountains found in io metric stuff on mco
superrotating atmosphere mathilde visited by near
europa subsurface ocean leonids back again
yogi airbags monster pan versailles for the acm
jgr ads moc mola and tes
mars observer blown to shards iss still in the cards
nasa's budget a tough sell better faster cheaper hell!


we didn't start the science--we've always been learning since the world's been turning
we didn't start the science, and we'd like to do some though it may be gruesome...

Lost In The Artifacts

First, here's the song:  Lost In The Artifacts.

Next, a happy 2011 to you (and us) all.  While the blog's been quiet I have actually been doing some recording and writing.  I'm not sure how much will end up on the next album, though--it's been a few rough run-throughs so I don't forget things and/or songs that might or might not fit when all told.

The song I'm posting today is one of the latter.  It started from a discussion on Twitter of results from the Stardust encounter with Comet Tempel 1 (of all things).  Emily said that some of the details were "almost lost in JPEG artifacts."  Barbara said that sounded like an album title of mine, followed by Luke asking if I could release it in time for LPSC.

I wrote the words pretty quickly (as might be obvious) and came up with the general musical idea pretty quickly too (as might also be obvious).  At first I thought I might be ripping off Elvis Costello too much but then I realized I was also ripping off Collective Soul, so it probably would work itself out. The song's pretty short and I've thought of ways to lengthen it a bit (I have a whole other verse written, but I don't particularly like it much), but on the other hand I don't think it gains anything by being longer and I'd rather have it be too short than be tediously long.  For this song, it might hit tediously long by 2 and a half minutes...

The Goofiest Cover Song

I've been in bands that covered Superfreak and the theme from Welcome Back Kotter. I've sung Cyndi Lauper songs and Spinal Tap songs.  I wrote a geeky version of We Didn't Start the Fire.  This may be the goofiest thing I've ever committed to silicon and as usual it's not very good.  But it was fun to record, so what the heck! 

I therefore present my version of Tik Tok, by Ke$ha, downloadable here. 

Three from Jury Rig

Ignoring false starts and one-shot deals, I've basically been in four bands:  Dr. Lüst, Pez Con Pelo, Jury Rig, and Science Diet.  Jury Rig was unusual compared to the others in that it was the only one of the four where the bassist knew how to play before joining the band (indeed, he was probably the best musician in the group).  It was also the only one for which we didn't really have a goal-- in Dr. Lüst we worked toward the yearly Battle of the Bands, Science Diet had our annual LPSC appearance as well as LPL-related parties, and Pez Con Pelo actually had a (poorly) paying weekly-ish gig downtown in Tucson.  In Jury Rig we just kind of practiced aimlessly until we decided we might as well assert ourselves at our friends' parties.

With all that, I dug out some old Jury Rig tapes I have.  By my reckoning we did ten songs that I wrote, nine of which I've since recorded for one of the "albums".  I'm including three of them in this post.  I'm playing 12-string on all of these, Will is on lead guitar, Don on drums, and Cameron on bass.

Solitaire was an old Dr. Lüst song, which we often used to lead off our sets.  I mostly think of that version as the canonical arrangement (and the version on In-Jokes with Myself follows it) but this version has a lot going for it, I think.  Maybe that's just me. :)  Naturally, I forgot the words to the second verse after I repeating the the words of the first verse to myself before starting.


Here We Go Again was written while I was in Pez Con Pelo but it wasn't right for that band (which played "dance jazz", kind of a cross between Steely Dan and Phish.  I played... cowbell and woodblocks.  That is a whole other post, though).  I always liked this one, and Cameron did a great job with the bass part.  Will never quite played what I asked him to, but it was close enough.

The last song is Another Margarita.  This one actually I wrote during a Pez Con Pelo practice, but again it really wasn't the right style.  Science Diet (cats loved us) also performed this, but I always think of this as more of a Jury Rig song.  The "A Day In The Life" part was kind of ill-advised, but I kept this arrangement for The Red Album.

No Hard Feelings

I thought I'd post something as September came to a close. So here's No Hard Feelings, written sometime in the 1993-1994 timeframe. The recording is pretty low-tech, done straight to cassette in 1994 back at Hawthorne House for a college friend who wanted some recordings. The attempt at noise removal I did several years back is still evident, though I remixed it slightly and converted it to mono for your enjoyment (or perhaps "enjoyment").

I've always had something of a soft spot for this one, even if it's a little bit goofy. I may try my hand at rerecording it but I'm not sure I have a better arrangement in mind...

20 Years in the Wrong Place

I realized a few weeks ago that I was coming up on the 20-year anniversary of one of my favorite originals. So, I'm indulging myself.

I wrote "Wrong Place, Wrong Time" back on 30 June 1990 (according to my notebook from the time), though I suppose it technically might have been percolating over a longer stretch. The title came from a mix tape a friend made for another friend and me, the sentiment for the song came from an on-again, off-again relationship (which I think was on again when I wrote it?)...

As I said, I'm indulging myself, so I include four versions of the song, the first two of which are from old poorly-recorded cassettes, and so have even more than the usual handicap as a result. The first version is from the summer of 1990, not long after I wrote it. The band is Dr. Lüst and the setting is a practice session in Masterton Melody Lounge in East Campus. I did the old "I can't sing this so I'm going to recite it" trick for the bridges, which I reprised as recently as my most recent post on this blog.

I wasn't crazy about the arrangement on the first version, and we sped it way way up for the second version, Dr. Lüst recorded live during the winter of 1990-1991 at a Bexley party that we drove everyone away from. It was too bad, we were pretty good that night (all things considered). Against my better judgment we played something more like the first version at Battle of the Bands during the spring of 1991, except with 1000 times worse singing on my part. After that, I didn't revive it for any of the other bands I was in.

In 2000, however, I decided to record it for my first "album", The Red Album. I went for the second ("fast") arrangement and piled on the synthesizers, and it became one of my new old favorites and one I was really happy with. Hence, the third version.

Upon realizing I was coming up on the 20th anniversary and that I had both 0th anniversary and 10th anniversary recordings, I decided to re-rerecord it again. So, the fourth version here is newly done in Garageband. It's perhaps closest to the version I inflicted on some of the East Campus folks back in the day while sitting outside my dorm room learning to play guitar, though this version has two guitars and a chorus effect. Progress marches on.

1 August 2012: Edited to change link for 3rd and 4th version of WPWT to the Bandcamp site, where they appear on The Red Album and as the B-side on the Men Are From Mars single, respectively.

Toast

I got the recording bug this weekend and thought I'd dash something off. "Toast" is an older song (c. 1997?) that I hadn't tried recording yet. In fact, I don't think I ever played this in any band (Science Diet would be the relevant band here), or even thought about playing it for any band.

As usual, it could use some more work-- I took the dodge of reciting rather than singing the interverse bits and could have sung it better in general. But this perhaps illustrates the difference between "good" and "good enough".