The next in my solo set. When Mark first came up with the idea of the ‘Songs of Apollo’s Children’ project, I found myself returning to the most momentous time in the history of mankind: Neil Armstrong taking his first step on the Moon. It was the 20th July 1969, and I was nine years old. Fresh in my memory are those grainy black and white pictures of shifting ghosts and shadows, and the glitchy beeps and scratches of the radio messages coming to us from that disc in the sky a quarter of a million miles away.

When I was nine. The future looked so far away, but I knew, I knew, in my lifetime we would be travelling back and forward to the Moon just as easily as I cycled up the road to the park. I knew, I knew that we would be wandering around the planets and that Man would be standing on Mars, the red dust billowing in clouds around his feet.

I’m 52 now, I have two children of my own, and when Mark said the Apollo missions were 40 years ago, I looked back at myself looking forward, and what I knew was going to happen, hasn’t happened. We are not taking our hols on the Moon, there aren’t spacecraft rushing to Mars to support the colony there.

This song is a reflection of that sad state, that there still seems no sign of manned missions to the moon, let alone to the other planets. This song is part lament, part hope that it will happen, and mostly a call to get us back out there. Come on, you NASA engineers, you ESA scientists, you Russian, Chinese and Indian rocket makers, what are you afraid of? We won’t find monsters on Mars – we’ll leave those behind here on Earth! Come on, you decision makers, let’s get back out there and into space, before we forget how to do it. It’s easy. It ain’t rocket science.

(Taken from the Arbelos website)

 

Join in!

Look to the sky at night
See a red star burning
When I was growing up
I nursed a yearning
That when I reached this day
There I’d be standing
On the plains of planet Mars
On the plains of planet Mars
On the plains of planet Mars
On the plains of planet Mars

 

Apollo led the way
It was a new day dawning
Bright fires of Saturn Five
It was a new sun rising
Neil Armstrong took his step
His white suit dazzling
And we all cried with joy
And we all cried with joy
And we all cried with joy
And we all cried with joy

We won’t find monsters
When we land on planet Mars
We won’t find monsters
When we land on planet Mars
A way we will find
With the monsters left behind


It’s a dream I still want to dream
With you beside me
We watch our children grow
Will they be what we can’t be?

Forty years have since passed by
Hold my hand my darling
Before we end our days on Earth
Will we see a man standing
Looking up to our planet blue
Through the red sands shimmering
A martian for a while
A martian for a while
A martian for a while
A martian for a while

We won’t find monsters
When we land on planet Mars
We won’t find monsters
When we land on planet Mars
A way we will find
With the monsters left behind

We won’t find monsters
When we land on planet Mars