The City in the Distance: Retrospective 2008-2018 is a 'best of' covering 10 years of Taylor Project, with 19 songs taken from albums 'Elon Musk', 'Doreen, Doreen', 'Life, Death, Prizes', 'Love in the Time of Scurvy' and 'The Happiest Girl in the Whole Wide Street'. As voted for by (like, 15) listeners. The CD comes in a digicase.
Includes unlimited streaming of The City in the Distance: Retrospective 2008-2018
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
See film clip here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuI990hpfB8. This track was written for the March 2017 Lomond Hotel Writer's Block. The prescribed theme of that month's songwriting event was "the planet". As it happened, the theme was well timed as Sarah had, around the same time, finally asked "who is Elon Musk?" during a grownup conversation. She'd heard the name bandied around in the preceding months but perhaps missed several witty conversational punchlines, not quite knowing who this person was. She was advised to read this blog post:
The song was written shortly after reading this informative post, and, incidentally, while sitting about the house watching a library DVD of “Carry on up the Khyber”. The movie served unintentionally as a reminder of how quickly new things get old. (For the record, it was still pretty funny).
We recorded up in Elmore in May 2017, and there was lots of help from “JJJ” – i.e. Juliette, Jason and Jen. Andrew did the mixing. We basically took an Agile development framework (without calling it as such), aiming for a quick turnaround from inception to production. Hence the release of this Taylor Project track, along with... more
lyrics
LYRICS (WITH SAMPLE FROM ELON MUSK DOCUMENTARY)
[It’s kind of amazing that this window of opportunity is open for life to go beyond Earth]
And when our bodies are long gone
A piece of us may carry on
In tiny polaroids of DNA
In a space ship heading off to Mars
With the proceeds of electric cars
The future’s always getting old
The here and now’s already gone
When I was young we had no HBO
In the 1980s we got tanned
In the 1990s we got fat
In the late 2000s we quit smoking but
Now the planet smokes for us
And in Elon Musk
We trust
Ask any teenager who’s stoned
To look at the stars and they will know
There is no up, there is no down
Just our bodies pressed against the ground
On the ceaseless giant spinning round
To Ellis Island dressed in rags
Old generations made their plans
For new beginnings in new continents
With their bodies pressed against the boughs
And the giant statue looking down
Only one way tickets to be found
Their ashes and ashes
And dust to dust
They sailed their ships
Like Elon Musk
[Creating the self-sustaining civilization on Mars would be the greatest adventure ever - ever in human history]
The only home I’ve ever known
Has my own fingers, my own toes
Every piece of wet cement
I wished I’d put my hands in it
Because like a captain I will go down with this ship
I see the future but it’s through a glass darkly
It’s a green light that recedes before me year by year
It’s a planet with my bones in it in rear view mirrors
Ashes to ashes
And dust to dust
In Elon Musk we trust
[It would be so exciting to wake up in the morning and think that’s – that’s what’s happening].
credits
released June 6, 2017
Sarah Taylor – lead vocals, acoustic guitar, lyrics
Liz Taylor – piano, backing vocals, lyrics
Andrew Bonnici – electric guitar, backing vocals
Jason Emilionowicz – bass, backing vocals
Scott Boydle – drums
Jen Pearson – backing vocals
Juliette Fishlock – backing vocals
Recorded and mixed by Andrew Bonnici @ Elmore
Mastered by Adam Dempsey
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