Ballad of a Spaceman - Julia Ecklar

[@nopenope6034]

if it makes sense these songs make me cry. not because they're sad but because they're a form of sad that I can't access and have to settle for less.

[@stoneybrotherbass]

50% is the writing the other 50% is the raw emotion in Julia's voice this whole genre has blown me away

[@emilymiller3362]

This is from the time that sci-fi was about a person's nature as much as it was about breaking nature to our whims.

[@robinfrederick3020]

This is Green Fields of Earth the song.

[@nickwalker4936]

Born in the belly of a rocket ship, thats from Terra, did it fly His first cries drowned by the engine roar, and no cradle did he lie, He'd hit Sontara by the time he was 4, Galhein when he was 9, Born as a Spaceman in a spaceman's bed, And as a Spaceman, he would die. He'd learned every course that a ship could take Found a few more on the side, He'd learn new tricks every stop they'd make With the engines, he did ride A spacer's pride was his swagger-stick and his pride knew that he could survive, He'd lived as a Spaceman since the day he was born, And as a Spaceman, he would die. They'd headed for Diversity in his trading years, when he'd just turned 34, The captain planned on a mighty pay After running a load of ore, The engine room gave him all they had, But the captain ordered more, They pumped 'em up to their hottest gain Just to hear the rockets roar. 500 miles above the planet's ground, the engines died away, The captain called, "WE NEED POWER NOW, OR WE'LL ALL DIE TODAY!" The Spaceman said, "all the boys are dead, and I'm not far behind We've pulled much more than she's meant to take, and the baffles have blown wide." The captain said, "well do something, man," and the Spaceman smiled wide "'cept hold the place down with my bare hands, we can't do nothin' but enjoy the ride!" But the ground flew up with destructive speed, And the Spaceman knew his mind, He couldn't just sit in the engine room and wait for his friends to die. So he turned around and put his hands inside, Where the engines used to glow, He found the plates and he held 'em fast, Cuz to quit's no way to go! The rockets shook with a mighty roar, and the engines, they did cry The Spaceman smiled through the engine's glow, For as a Spaceman, he would die. They found the boys in the engine room, by their stations they did lie, The Spaceman with his hands on a baffle plate, still sittin' where he'd died, They took them out, gave them to the stars, Not a single Spaceman cried, For spacemen in the stars, to live And in the stars, they longed to die. The spaceman's life, for his men did give And the stars would let 'em lie He lived as a Spaceman from the day he was born, and as a Spaceman, he did die.

[@SIRCAM73]

Thank you! 😊

[@mortanes2]

Correct me if my correction is wrong, but "'cept hold the *plates* down with my bare hands, we can't do nothin' but enjoy the ride!" the same plates as in the "He found the plates and he held 'em fast"

[@mushyomens6885]

Not all heroes wear capes!! Thanks

[@I.m-Me]

"The engine room gave him all they had, but the captain ordered more. They pumped 'em up to their hottest gain Just to hear the rockets' roar." I love the sound and the poetry, but F this terrible captain and F the glorification of this behavior and F the eponymous spaceman for not objecting to such hotrodding in the first place. FFS!

[@doopydoopz1737]

I love how real this seems. Just for the mere fact that people are arguing who is at fault for the Spaceman dying. Was it the engineering crew for pushing the ship so hard? Or was it the Captain for possibly overloading the ship with ore?

[@magmasajerk]

The Captain is the one who demanded that Engineering give him more and more. Maybe Engineering should have told him when they'd hit too much, but ultimately, the responsibility for whether the ship lives or dies lies with the captain. ..shit, now I'm doing it too.

[@spacecorpse3212]

@@magmasajerk the captains a fool

[@user-cz3yk5qf7m]

@ SPACE CORPSE Space Captain Schettino

[@Mrdark7199]

Its always the captains fault. It was his crew, his ship, his decision .

[@logansorenssen]

@@spacecorpse3212 Aye, seems he was. Still, even a damnfool of a captain is still responsible for his ship.

[@notablegoat]

I'm a lover or vintage sci-fi, but I find this also has a Firefly feel to it. I could see it being sung by a passenger on the Serenity.

[@doomsend8999]

notablegoat the ship gives me the vibes too, not serenity but resembles her to me.

[@timwells637]

also sounds like a song Mal and the crew would sing

[@Cloudstastemetalic]

True tho I was thinking cowboy bebop tho they are similar

[@ctw30002000]

I could almost swear there must be a very similar song where a brave brakeman saves many lives on a train by clinging to his brake levers or steam valves. Wreck of the Old '97 comes to mind, no?

[@Crazael]

I would not be at all surprised if this was based on such a song.

[@skylark6167]

You're probably thinking of Casey Jones. Kinda reckless engineer who was a bit of a folk hero, repeatedly drove way too fast to keep to schedule. He rear ended another train that wasn't supposed to be there, and by hanging on to the brakes to the end and ordering his fireman to jump clear he was the only casualty. It's a true story and there are songs about the event.

[@awhahoo]

@@skylark6167never heard of that, Id had only heard the union songs version of him. Definitely gonna go listen to some of the songs

[@fearreavers]

I love this song. Its definitely one of my favorites. THis and Pushing the Speed of Light.

[@Cypher-9]

This reminds me of the ending of Wrath of Khan. With the Genesis device about to blow, Spock fixing the warp drive so they could escape but getting flooded with radiation in the process. The lines "We need power now or we'll all die today" and "Gave them to the stars"...

[@secretname2670]

This hits just as ss13 does sometimes... Right in the feels

[@sirsnek6562]

ss13 hits in the feels? bruh what server are you on

[@secretname2670]

@@sirsnek6562 the secret kid's club. You can sometimes see there my inquisitor Lorenz smiting the heretic and flensed alike

[@calyxman]

@@secretname2670 I was going to say.. cough cough.. the videogame oriented cousin of /tg/... but I dunno. Is it randy's fever dream?

[@voidutopian]

Dang, what alternate universe are you from where Sekrit Club can hit you in the feels? The version we have in this reality just has fragbrains and people trying to be funny.

[@secretname2670]

@@voidutopian sometimes you just go out on the surface and breathe in the stale air of a dying planet.

[@Lazarus1095]

I see that remarkably few people commenting on this recognize that it is essentially a lyric version of the second half of The Green Hills of Earth. This is where they cribbed Spock's death in Star Trek 2. In fact, I even heard an audiotape version narrated by Leonard Nimoy himself.

[@mechapoleon2528]

this might be the saddest most beautiful sci-fi themed ballad I've ever heard. Not really a fan of Startrek but I really love the fandom.

[@mattiasjohannorglaan2967]

Then you'll love Bill Sutton's "The Pilots Eye" :D fairly similar in theme but it hits alot harder.

[@beckybrown1123]

Sam Jones and Some Kind of Hero are also both great options

[@chadfalkin6850]

listen to the album "carmen miranda's ghost" for a few more

[@epiendless1128]

One that gets me is David Michael Bennett - Fire Fire. His band Steam Powered Giraffe also do the song, but the solo performance is far more moving.

[@eggisfun4217]

@@chadfalkin6850 and "On a bright wind" and "Free fall and other delights"

[@jw7156]

Man, this is some belter music.

[@GrandChiefSmackaho]

I am personally going to WILL this song into greater public consciousness and popularity.

[@Lee-nd4yf]

A oath to that final breaking burn to the spacer .... to the man

[@LastFanStanding12]

I'd love for this song to get a modern music video. Use a busker on some grimy galactic burg as a framing device, then flashback to the events described.

[@apedemak23]

Woah what awesomeness is this?!

[@Gottaculat]

Gotta play this while playing Space Engineers, lol!

[@spacecorpse3212]

good choice of music and good choice of game

[@MsBethRick]

Beautiful tune, great lyrics even though sad. I can envision a time in the future when people are born on ships or space stations (even though they may have artificial gravity) and those people not feeling comfortable on a planet's surface, at least not outside. What could be worse for someone like that to have to live their last years on a planet? They'd most likely rather die young. Anyhoo. thanks so much for sharing.

[@thwoolfe]

The Green Hills of Terra - by Heinlein seems to be the story behind this

[@notablegoat]

thwoolfe "The Green Hills of Earth" is a great story. Did you know that the title is taken from a story by C.L. Moore, wherein one of the characters whistles the song "The Green Hills of Earth" as he goes about his smuggler's business?

[@robinfrederick3020]

Green Hills is even better; Rhysling is blind and old and the last jetman who knows the ship better than anyone aboard, and he sings his death song as he brings the ship back home.

[@joeclark1871]

These are actually based on C.J, Cherryh's "Merchanter" series.

[@hunnybee971]

@@robinfrederick3020 My favorite story by Heinlein, and the one I remembered for more than sixty years. I just bought a used copy of a book with short stories. Waiting for a time I'm not busy to sit and read and relive my childhood memories of those school chums who loved Heinlein, too.

[@DanielMcGillis-xs6rt]

They took them out, gave them to the stars, Not a single Spaceman cried, For spacemen in the stars, to live And in the stars, they longed to die. The spacemen may not cry, I sure did.

[@D.Holliday112]

D*mn. I need to check my suits seals. I seem to have water vapor in my helmet.

[@horseenthusiast9903]

Oh, same. Seems to be a common problem with the suits here...

[@Drew_Hurst]

Incredible!

[@umadbroimatroll7918]

>stopping a loose singularity in ss13 sacrificing yourself to save the station

[@REZA-tl5kr]

THE SCRUNGULARITY THE SCRUGRALRYTI LOSE IT LOOS RUN

[@sagault8546]

thwoolfe had it right. It's based upon Heinlein's The Green Hills of Terra.

[@SalariaStudios]

We are on the cusp of listening to these inside of actual ships. The fact my son and I may actually have to have the earth or space talk is nuts.

[@bobjoe3492]

Maybe for local planets, but anything outside of our solar system we're extremely far from still.

[@Ladco77]

The song doesn't go into detail why the Captain wanted so much power. Could be he was greedy and wanted a bonus for getting there early. Or, it could just as easily be they wouldn't get paid unless they were there on time and he needed to get paid so his crew could get paid. Read into it whatever narrative you like and I'll concentrate on the heroic spaceman doing his best to save his fellow shipmates regardless of how they ended up in that situation.

[@joeclark1871]

Where do read that anyone died? It's about time dilation when traveling at the speed of light, and the hope that if you push long enough, you'll get back to your starting time and place, and do it all over again and again.

[@jackharris8661]

@@joeclark1871 wrong song

[@calyxman]

@@joeclark1871 This isn't Pushing the Speed of Light.

[@eggisfun4217]

@@joeclark1871 this is ballad of spacemen

[@Matthiasflint]

Yo, I feel like I personally let The Spaceman down somehow, more people need to hear this!

[@Nyckname]

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

[@lolroflroflcakes]

Everyone blames the captain but the spaceman should have also known better. If we look at history would see that the real problem lies in corporate chucklefucks only worrying about their bottom line, the captain was probably told be here at this time or lose your job. Their was a big thing in Canada in the 80s/90s where airline management staff got nailed to the wall for forcing aircrew to make unsafe decisions until a bunch of people died. Moral of the story is just blaming it on the captain and his crew will not solve the problem and spacemen will keep dying until the root of the problem, managerial meddling, is addressed.

[@Sh1tbagActual]

More like they were in a spot from the moment they took off above weight. The blame lies with whomever loaded up the craft.

[@subhumanfilth3696]

Doesn't the song specifically say "They pumped them up to their hottest game just to hear the rockets roar"

[@Bruwulf]

"Born in the belly of a rocket ship, as from Terra it did fly." This song is from a type of science fiction story that nearly doesn't exist anymore, a setting where space travel - because of the enormous distances and time involved, and time dilation from traveling at near-C or through hypothetical FTL travel - has created a second society of humanity, spacers. "Born as a spaceman in a spaceman's bed, and as a spaceman he would die." The crews of these spaceships don't live among the greater bulk of humanity. They are a caste apart. The ship is their family. You don't just leave it. Some of them are born into it, literally, as the protagonist of this song was. No life or family outside the ship, the ship is all they know. It is effectively their entire world, save for whatever little time they might spend in ports loading cargo or servicing the ship. And they form no connections - it might be five, ten, twenty years before they visit the same port again, but for them it may only have been weeks or months. This is the flipside of another song on this album, "Pushing the Speed of Light" - That character wasn't born to the life. He wasn't mentally prepared for completely disconnecting from humanity, and so he became despondent and obsessed with the life to give himself something to hold on to, some meaning. But for a character like the Spaceman in this song, there is no other life. Yes, the captain made a bad decision. Probably several of them in a row. So? What else was the Spaceman to do?

[@Frankmore07]

That brought tears to my eye's.

[@mickdipiano8768]

I cried

[@kacperspisz4239]

so you are no spaceman

[@supergogurt2607]

If someone asked me to hear someone with a beautiful voice I'd have to say Julia ecklar and i don't think i have heard someone with a more beautiful voice. (Not the best audio quality on this song tho)

[@kellyrayburn4093]

Great song, but as a commenter already said, the captain was an idiot. I wonder if the extra pay he got for getting that ore there earlier allowed him to make a profit after replacing his engine room crew and paying for the engine repairs. But such people (spacemen and spacewomen) would most likely rather die in space than being forced to live their remaining years on a planet's surface. "All that open space. It just isn't natural. *shudders*"

[@davidgasiorek4134]

It's unlikely he was able to afford repairs or the rest of the trip in the first place, given the accident happened on launch at 500 miles altitude on a suborbital trajectory, and the burn they made after the engine went back on must have been barely enough to correct into a (presumably) highly elliptical orbit. His crew probably jumped ship the moment they were towed into dock.

[@kellyrayburn4093]

I don't think it happened on launch but on approach according to the song's time line.

[@davidgasiorek4134]

Let me listen to this again... ... It really seems to be ambiguous. The named altitude is, of course, high above the border to space of most planets - suggesting the engine failure occured on a re-entry burn if it did happen at the destination instead of the launch. At best this would mean they'd miss. At the very, very worst it would mean they'd be aerobraking and re-enter at a high velocity (as overshooting and slamming into the ground is highly unlikely with overworked engines), which I suppose would kill a ship with insufficient shielding that was suffering from overheating already.

[@kellyrayburn4093]

Gilda Griffon 500 miles from ground and they'd likely miss? 500 miles is 1/16 the size of the diameter of Earth. I don't think they could miss unless they had Star Trek style impulse thrusters. And according to this their engines were out. Thrusters are part of the engine on spacecraft.

[@davidgasiorek4134]

What I meant is, re-entry burns are performed at altitudes lower than that. So it is likely that if they were on approach, they were shifting to a lower orbit when their engines failed as opposed to entering atmosphere, making it unlikely for them to slam into the planet.

[@JudithYD]

What a sad story - but my first reaction was "What a stupid captain." If he hadn't pushed the engines so hard, the spaceman might still be alive.

[@spacesuitian9745]

JudithYD because if he had survived he would have died some other way. Death is inevitable. However at least this way he died as he lived.

[@pieisdeath30]

If im not mistaken this is a re-lyric of Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves right? otherwise what song am i hearing at the start?

[@pieisdeath30]

No its not that song, but why does it sound so familier?

[@RedwoodTheElf]

@TSiLvY Um...no. The Enterprise was definitely not a cargo ship...heh.

[@InquisitorMatthewAshcraft]

According to klingon reports, it's a garbage scow 🤣

[@RedwoodTheElf]

All primative species refer to their planet as "Dirt"...

[@doomsend8999]

RedwoodTheElf welcome to Earth.

[@thwoolfe]

@TheEndKing: Terra = earth (Latin) terrestrial...

[@rkt739]

@TSiLvY It's a similar story, but not an intentional reference. All the little details are off, and you can bet that filkers care about the details.

[@robinfrederick3020]

So long Rhysling.

[@matthewquan9083]

Are Sontara and Galhein places or ranks/qualification?

[@DanielMcGillis-xs6rt]

I think they are star systems. Likely far out in the void.

[@sufficetosay1704]

Raw Space, brought me here.

[@IsaacSchubert]

This song belongs in Outer Worlds

[@barragethree5047]

The Outer Worlds is a beautiful game, but this did what TOW couldn't, which was replicate the emotions of Heinlein's novels

[@danielmcgillis270]

I can see sitting on the rec deck of a free trader flying through jump space listening to another Traveler play this tune wile drinking some real cheap vodka.

[@dkkemp-hd8tx]

She is absoluely obsessed with you.She can't be with anyone besides you.She is a part of you.

[@stoneybrotherbass]

am I the only one who heard this in my head watching Space X Starship crash today?

[@sorbus1654]

If you tweak the lyrics a bit this would fit couple of the characters from Firefly almost perfectly...

[@MichalSoukup1995]

Kaylee would never let anybody mistreated Serenity to sutch a point, but nice point on you side.

[@spookigreyman3757]

I mean the engine did die in one episode. Yknow the whole "no air and only backup batteries for lights lol" thing happened. She was asking for the parts for the entirety of the show though. But it happened.

[@MichalSoukup1995]

SpookiGreyman Yes, easily preventable, If you would give Kaylee a credit card and one afternoon for shopping without limit, but that would be quite expensive, as she would for sure buy a ton on strawberries, and try to paas tham as equipment... :D

[@hugoporras3162]

can you fix the audio pls? its a lovely song, but it sounds louder on the left headphone

[@FriendliestTrashpanda]

Quick fix for Firefox: install "Audio Equalizer" plugin, and play in Mono. I'm sure there are similar solutions for other browsers.

[@coval5694]

This version is a bit cleaner and fixes that issue for you kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZm8q6RufLhjiZo&ab_channel=SongsfromtheStars

[@hugoporras3162]

@@coval5694 i found the HQ versions a while back, but thanks anyways :)

[@hcharlequinharlequincorps8394]

Dawson's Christian Carmen Miranda's Ghost Dorsai are filled with Ose it's called filk music now.. if someone could find "Kind of Mediocre actually" I would be thankful.

[@MrBonebus]

Anyone selling filk?

[@TheEndKing]

Terra's earth, right?

[@TheAwesomenessity]

Yes.

[@rocketjumper1380]

@@TheAwesomenessity 8 years later, he got his answer!

[@NICEFINENEWROBOT]

Terrans, also sometimes called Tellurians, come from Sol 3 which is Terra, our nice blue green and white planet.

[@NICEFINENEWROBOT]

@@rocketjumper1380 We don't fly often in this sector. He'll have the answer ready when he awakes from cryo-sleep.

[@calyxman]

​@@NICEFINENEWROBOT Hey man, mind getting out of cryo storage? I think being in there for (at least right now) 2 years will do something to you. And I'm pretty sure the OP died in cryo storage..

[@TSiLvY]

It's Spock, isn't it?

[@joeclark1871]

I don't see where people are saying the captain destroyed the ship. There's no reference to anything about the ship being destroyed. You're all reading much too much into this. The song is based on C.J. Cherryh's "Merchanter" series of books, as the other songs are based on other of her series, such as "Chanur". Nobody on the ship dies, it's about time dilation that occurs as you approach the speed of light. Einstein's Theory of Relativity applies. The final hope of the spacefarer is to eventually retard time so much that it "catches up" with them at their point of origin, and they can start over and over again. I have volume I of this music book, words and chords......

[@InternetGravedigger]

Wrong song, you're thinking 'Pushing The Speed Of Light.'

[@captainspire9094]

Fantastic! If Star Trek ever had a new (better) series) this would be a good theme.

[@neiljaqua7397]

Too bad the spaceship didn't have automatic protective features to assist the space operator in the event of a casualty.