Bill Roper's Journal

The tune for this song showed up in my guitar's inbox while I was waiting for a compile last week. I mean, seriously. I was just sitting there noodling and the chords and tune checked right in and set up shop in my office.

The problem was they didn't bring the lyrics along with them. Apparently, they missed the flight. But the chords and tune kept going around on the guitar there and eventually the phrase "Night Flowers" attached itself to the chorus. I *still* had no idea of what the song was about, so I just let it keep rolling around for a couple of days.

Today, the lyrics showed up, apologizing for having missed their flight.

Let me introduce you to them.

Words and Music: Bill Roper
Copyright 2022

Night Flowers

Out in a sky of velvet black
The ships are sitting, fully packed,
The engines primed and ready
Waiting for the word to go.
Our fleet assembled in the sky
And now the time has come to fly,
So keep the courses steady.
Let’s find out what we don’t know.

(Chorus)
Night flowers, blasting off into the darkness,
Looking for a world that wants us
As we’re heading out to roam.
Night flowers, living life the way it found us,
Lighting up the sky around us
As we’re hunting for a home.

We flew out once, we flew out twice,
And found new worlds of fire and ice,
Flying past the speed of light
Out to the galaxy.
Go home, they said, or just go large,
And so we’ve taken up the charge.
Ten thousand ships to take the flight
Out for humanity.

(Bridge to Chorus)
Send ten thousand tiny ships
On interstellar scouting trips
To find another world that suits our need.
Lighting up the midnight sky,
Fiery blossoms open high,
Searching for a place to spread our seed.

You’ve got to have a backup plan
To save the race that we call man.
The Earth is a harsh mistress
And she isn’t always kind,
But in a hundred thousand stars
Must be a world that looks like ours.
With night flowers to assist us,
There’s a world that we will find.

(Chorus twice)

Night flowers.
Night flowers.
Night flowers.
Night flowers.