Following the title track with the same name of my new album, “Ticket to Mars”, I’ve released the next three songs: “Hello”, “Head in the Stars”, and “The Great Wall”. All three are about the contrast between being stuck here on Earth, and travelling beyond the stars, perhaps even meeting an alien from another planet.
Hello
The lyrics of “Hello” is about an astronaut on a mission in a remote part of the galaxy, and an alien being from another planet, encountering each other for the first time. What would they say, if anything? I wondered to myself, when I got the idea for a song. Scientists have been working on answering that question ever since space missions began, and the first attempts were made to send signals into outer space, in the hopes of an answer. In the lyrics, sometimes it’s what the alien says (for instance in the Chorus, when he calls the astronaut “earthling” and “human being”). Other times it’s the astronaut, wondering where the alien is from.
Lyrics – Hello
Lyrics ©2024 Marthe Bijman
Who are you, stranger?
Where are you from ?
Where is your home?
I am pleased to meet at
this rendezvous.
How do you do.
Greeting, Earthling,
Human Being, say hello.
This word we know:
Say Hello.
You don’t have eyes, I see.
But I think that
you can hear me.
And you speak in music
From beyond this sphere.
What do you hear?
Could you be from Eris,
so pale and so serene?
With a single moon spinning ‘round
a lifeless scene?
Could life have been?
You have made a bridge from
your ship to mine
‘cross space and time.
Here and now, in orbit
we can connect.
Take the first step.
Head in the Stars
“Head in the Stars” poses the question of whether there are planets, other than Earth, in the universe, on which humans can live. And also, why we would want to go to such extraordinary lengths to discover those planets. Or even just one. The odds are really, really not good. In the song, the vocalist whispers a number, “667”. I wonder if anyone knows which exoplanet this refers to.
Head in the Stars Visualizer Video
Lyrics – Head in the Stars
Songwriters ©2024 S. Berchik & M. Bijman
No-one gets off this green earth alive,
How tragic.
Oh so many galaxies -
Our world is just in one little bit.
We hope that exoplanets will be future living stations,
but truth be told they’re all, in fact, deadly destinations.
Jupiter’s much lonelier
Brimming with ammonia
Six hundred million k’s away
but frozen solid night & day
Acid in the atmosphere,
Drifting in the stratosphere
Not a single souvenir
Could one hope to have from here
It’s a long shot
Herculean efforts
we’ll be fleeing
to a new world that might work
Why search so far from ours?
Our rudder’s in the gutter so we stare up at the stars
Feet in the mud - Head in the stars.
Feet in the mud - Head in the stars.
No-one gets off this green earth alive,
How tragic.
Oh so many galaxies -
And our world is just one little bit.
We hope that exoplanets will be future living stations,
but truth be told they’re all, in fact, deadly destinations.
Then there is Mars, SpaceX destination,
closer to Earth, but still a chilled, hostile creation.
Ice-bound, iron dust whirlwinds,
And gravity is lacking for mortal human beings
It’s a long shot
Herculean effort
we’ll be fleeing to a new world that might work
Why search so far from ours?
Our rudder’s in the gutter so we stare up at the stars
and know that stardust is just what you are
one hundred percent, it’s what you are.
667
Some think of Venus, bright before our eyes.
Why fantasise of skies that gladly boil you all alive?
Sulfurous clouds
Fill the atmosphere,
No flake of life has even ever reared it’s head from here
Bound to earth,
we reach for the sublime
and unknown,
building hopes on imagery we see
that we’ve captured in the outer zone.
When we stand in the dust
we’re still yearning for the stars
How sweet and simple we forget
Stardust is what we are
The only thing we are
It’s a long shot
Herculean effort
we’ll be fleeing to a new world that might work
Why search so far from ours?
Our rudder’s in the gutter so we stare up at the stars
Feet in the mud - Head in the stars.
Feet in the mud - Head in the stars.
The Great Wall
This song is about people separated by a wall – metaphorical or literal – and desperate to be together. They are bound to Earth as much as they are bound to places that are far from each other. So many people, so many couples and families, find themselves in this type of situation these days. One person may be in one country, trying to get a foothold, another may still be in their country of origin. Some might be separated by not being able to get through the paperwork, or they might be separated by their beliefs. One person may be on one side of a border, the other may have crossed the border already. One person may feel as though their mind is locked away, and that the other person cannot reach them.
The Great Wall Visualizer Video
Lyrics – The Great Wall
Lyrics ©2024 Marthe Bijman
A great wall is between us.
Can you cross it?
This divide is so long and wide
that is no access
from either side.
From far away
I am calling you.
Longing every day.
Won’t you fly to me?
This song is my call.
I’m so lonely without you.
With my back against this wall,
I am calling you.
From far away
I am calling you.
Longing every day.
Won’t you fly to me?
Were we a landscape
you would be South
and I would be North,
and all the world with its hate,
a wall between us both.
Can you be freed, or I?
We beg for time,
for the balance of all things,
for prisoners,
and the gift of wings.
From far away
I am calling you.
Longing every day.
Won’t you fly to me?
This song is my call.
I’m so lonely without you.
With my back against this wall,
I am calling you.
From far away
I am calling you.
Longing every day.
Won’t you fly to me?