Bill Roper's Journal

This is encouraging. I've been afflicted by a pretty nasty case of writer's block since COVID showed up. Bits and pieces of this song showed up stalking me the other day when I woke up.

And here are (I believe) all of the bits and pieces.

Words and Music: Bill Roper
Copyright 2022

The Old Centauri Run

It’s the shortest trip you’ll ever make
To see another sun.
And there’s nothing there that you want to take
From Three, or Two, or One,
But we’re going back out along the track
Where the star lanes first begun.
So sit down, Jack, learn to love the black
On the old Centauri run.

The warp drive pushed at light speed,
But couldn’t break past C.
The ship popped out like a tiny seed
And all aboard could see
Two suns near and one sun far:
Count One, Two, Three new suns
From the first ship to another star
On the old Centauri run.

One’s like Sol but older,
A billion years or more.
Two’s like Sol but colder,
A new type to explore.
There’s just debris where worlds should be
For their orbits were undone.
But there’s more to see when we check out Three
On the old Centauri run.

Three’s a tiny ember,
As red as red can be.
Her flares long since dismembered
Her planets numbered three.
Stripped of air, left burnt and bare,
Two closest to the sun.
The third’s a ball of ice and rock
On the old Centauri run.

Now we fly at FTL
And leap from star to star.
Centauri’s just a trip to hell
To buy at the bazaar
A thousand years of data mined
From this closest set of suns
By the instruments we left behind
On the old Centauri run.

It’s the shortest trip you’ll ever make
To see another sun.
And there’s nothing there that you want to take
From Three, or Two, or One,
But we’re going back out along the track
Where the star lanes first begun.
So sit down, Jack, learn to love the black
On the old Centauri run.

So sit down, Jack, learn to love the black
On the old Centauri run.