A Song About Rockets by Exurb1a Lyrics
Artist
It started out in China in the early 1300s
When they stumbled upon gunpowder
Most probably by accident
And mostly would use it for their
Fireworks and weapons, then
It took five more long centuries
For us to give a shit again
A little later, Isaac Newton
Worked out how the planets stay
In orbit round the sun, and how
The galaxies all got that way
"And maybe we can use this stuff
For getting to the moon one day?"
But chill out mate
That's still two hundred years
And one 'US' away
But no one really knew
If you could breathe outsidе
The atmosphere
So maybе it'd be smarter if we
All just played it safe down here
Nah, screw it
Let's go do it
Space is taunting us
And Mars looks pretty dope
The rockets back then in the 1900s
Were all solid fuel
And Robert Goddard came up with
A three-stage plan to upgrade all
Combustion chambers so they were
Much smaller but more powerful
And everyone was like:
"Yeah, yeah, but that's just plain impractical"
It wasn't, 'cause that kickstarted
A turning point in rocketry
So now the world's at war
And we're all after new technology
And lots of this is being used
Most notably by Germany...
To land people in London
In the graveyard and infirmary
But World War 2 is over now
And everybody's eager to
Snap up the German scientists
Who pioneered the first V-2
Especially America
Who wanted to get humans into space
By then most rockets ran on liquid fuel
Which brought the bonus of
More complex thrust adjustment
And mass ratio (or lack thereof)
America adopted these improvements
Then largely because
Russia's getting pushy with
Their star nerd Sergei Korolev
He gives the Soviets a rocket
Modelled on the Reich's V-2
The spends some time in prison
Where he masterminds a program to
Get people into orbit
But first animals make their debut
Woof Woofski comrade Laika
Cheers to you and
Всего доброго (best wishes)
The U.S. meanwhile's trying to beat them
Sending humans into space
Whoever wins will celebrate
With beer or borchst in any case
And NASA's doing pretty good
With von Braun helping out with German smarts
But right about then
Russia's time for rocketry is finally here
In 1961 Yuri Gagarin left the atmosphere
And returned to Earth as someone future astronauts
Would soon revere....
Too bad he died soon after in a jet crash
Извините! (Sorry!)
America was soon to
Follow with their own attempt
And Alan Shepard flew in
Freedom 7, free of accident
Though Russia watched with vodka, smokes
And no doubt lashings of contempt....
And now it's the U.S.'s turn
For spacey tries and brave pre-empts
Hey, what's that big enormous white thing
Floating in the sky at night?
Let's go see if that cures our
Frightful scientific appetite
Hey JFK stop riding round in
Open motorcades
OH, JESUS CHRIST!
America was sad
But the space race continued resolute
Then more disasters followed
Due to fire and twisted parachute
Apollo 8 went great, but didn't land
Just did a lunar loop
All right moon? How's it going?
Brb, we're gonna walk on u
Then one year later Armstrong
And Buzz Aldrin touched the lunar floor
And mankind was united in a
Global truce forevermore
My god, we're all so tiny
And what's all this fighting even for?
"Ah, fuck it back to work
Hey Russia, when's the next atomic war?"
Then five more missions landed on the moon
And made it back again
Ignoring the thirteenth
Which suffered something of an accident
And good news, NASA! All your funding's cut
[Interlude]
So like no more spacing about for a bit....
And that was the last time
Humans ever left Earth orbit
So, that's good isn't it?
But we've got plenty more
Important things to be doing
Like walking around collecting
Imaginary Japanese water demons
On a phone
Very crucial to our species' development
Team Mystic represent by the way
We'll bathe in the blood of our enemies
[interlude end]
So now the U.S. took the moon
The Russians can all barely wait
To get ahead, or leave a legacy behind at any rate
Let's launch a bunch of space stations
Then goodbye to the Soviet state
The ISS was next up there
And now we all collaborate...
To explore the planets near and far
We mostly just use probes these days
'cause space is kinda dangerous
And full of deadly cosmic rays
And human exploration's cool
But probes are cheap and patience pays...
And Juno's now at Jupiter
But Mars gets all the Twitter praise
Well, hopefully we'll colonise the solar system sometime soon
And take ourselvees a crater
Or a hovel on a martian moon
Let's pray we just stay cool
'cause Total Recall didn't look much fun at all
NASA's budget's pretty small
But now there's a new substitute
'cause private corporations
Help out astronauts with their commute
That's one small step for man
Next time it might be with a Nike boot
And Elon Musk's a cooler Tony Stark without the robot suit...
We're doubtless just beginning
On our journey out beyond the skies
What perils and delights might lie in wait
And take us by surprise?
A message to our grandchildren:
Let's hope you're more evolved and wise...
But most of all good luck
Cause heaven knows you'll fucking need it guys
It started out in China in the early 1300s
When they stumbled upon gunpowder
Most probably by accident
And mostly would use it for their
Fireworks and weapons, then
It took five more long centuries
For us to give a shit again
A little later, Isaac Newton
Worked out how the planets stay
In orbit round the sun, and how
The galaxies all got that way
"And maybe we can use this stuff
For getting to the moon one day?"
But chill out mate
That's still two hundred years
And one 'US' away
But no one really knew
If you could breathe outsidе
The atmosphere
So maybе it'd be smarter if we
All just played it safe down here
Nah, screw it
Let's go do it
Space is taunting us
And Mars looks pretty dope
The rockets back then in the 1900s
Were all solid fuel
And Robert Goddard came up with
A three-stage plan to upgrade all
Combustion chambers so they were
Much smaller but more powerful
And everyone was like:
"Yeah, yeah, but that's just plain impractical"
It wasn't, 'cause that kickstarted
A turning point in rocketry
So now the world's at war
And we're all after new technology
And lots of this is being used
Most notably by Germany...
To land people in London
In the graveyard and infirmary
But World War 2 is over now
And everybody's eager to
Snap up the German scientists
Who pioneered the first V-2
Especially America
Who wanted to get humans into space
By then most rockets ran on liquid fuel
Which brought the bonus of
More complex thrust adjustment
And mass ratio (or lack thereof)
America adopted these improvements
Then largely because
Russia's getting pushy with
Their star nerd Sergei Korolev
He gives the Soviets a rocket
Modelled on the Reich's V-2
The spends some time in prison
Where he masterminds a program to
Get people into orbit
But first animals make their debut
Woof Woofski comrade Laika
Cheers to you and
Всего доброго (best wishes)
The U.S. meanwhile's trying to beat them
Sending humans into space
Whoever wins will celebrate
With beer or borchst in any case
And NASA's doing pretty good
With von Braun helping out with German smarts
But right about then
Russia's time for rocketry is finally here
In 1961 Yuri Gagarin left the atmosphere
And returned to Earth as someone future astronauts
Would soon revere....
Too bad he died soon after in a jet crash
Извините! (Sorry!)
America was soon to
Follow with their own attempt
And Alan Shepard flew in
Freedom 7, free of accident
Though Russia watched with vodka, smokes
And no doubt lashings of contempt....
And now it's the U.S.'s turn
For spacey tries and brave pre-empts
Hey, what's that big enormous white thing
Floating in the sky at night?
Let's go see if that cures our
Frightful scientific appetite
Hey JFK stop riding round in
Open motorcades
OH, JESUS CHRIST!
America was sad
But the space race continued resolute
Then more disasters followed
Due to fire and twisted parachute
Apollo 8 went great, but didn't land
Just did a lunar loop
All right moon? How's it going?
Brb, we're gonna walk on u
Then one year later Armstrong
And Buzz Aldrin touched the lunar floor
And mankind was united in a
Global truce forevermore
My god, we're all so tiny
And what's all this fighting even for?
"Ah, fuck it back to work
Hey Russia, when's the next atomic war?"
Then five more missions landed on the moon
And made it back again
Ignoring the thirteenth
Which suffered something of an accident
And good news, NASA! All your funding's cut
[Interlude]
So like no more spacing about for a bit....
And that was the last time
Humans ever left Earth orbit
So, that's good isn't it?
But we've got plenty more
Important things to be doing
Like walking around collecting
Imaginary Japanese water demons
On a phone
Very crucial to our species' development
Team Mystic represent by the way
We'll bathe in the blood of our enemies
[interlude end]
So now the U.S. took the moon
The Russians can all barely wait
To get ahead, or leave a legacy behind at any rate
Let's launch a bunch of space stations
Then goodbye to the Soviet state
The ISS was next up there
And now we all collaborate...
To explore the planets near and far
We mostly just use probes these days
'cause space is kinda dangerous
And full of deadly cosmic rays
And human exploration's cool
But probes are cheap and patience pays...
And Juno's now at Jupiter
But Mars gets all the Twitter praise
Well, hopefully we'll colonise the solar system sometime soon
And take ourselvees a crater
Or a hovel on a martian moon
Let's pray we just stay cool
'cause Total Recall didn't look much fun at all
NASA's budget's pretty small
But now there's a new substitute
'cause private corporations
Help out astronauts with their commute
That's one small step for man
Next time it might be with a Nike boot
And Elon Musk's a cooler Tony Stark without the robot suit...
We're doubtless just beginning
On our journey out beyond the skies
What perils and delights might lie in wait
And take us by surprise?
A message to our grandchildren:
Let's hope you're more evolved and wise...
But most of all good luck
Cause heaven knows you'll fucking need it guys