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Boundless?

Music and lyrics copyright ©2002 by Blake Hodgetts

Crafted after a realization that there were very few songs on this general subject, and that I had written very few songs in minor keys. The storyline of the song is original, although the theme is similar to that found in such stories as Heinlein's classic "Universe".

Soft in the corridors, light as a cat,
I prowl in the night.
Seeking the long-hidden portal to gaze at the sight:
Cold as a liquid crystal they burn
As round their circle they turn,
Full of their mysteries no-one can learn,
Indifferent pinpoints of light.

[Chorus:]
Hear me oh, hear me oh,
There's a hundred and seventy-four years to go. (2x)

I am in school and it's here with my class
My future is made:
Physics, electromechanics, the tools of my trade.
We have no doubts of our destiny:
A Core Technician I'll be,
To work for the Ship and for what she grants me...
But some tenets must be obeyed.

[Chorus]

Uncounted times I have heard it explained:
The Ship is our place.
Here we were born, here we die, it's the home of our race.
Who made the Ship? That's not ours to know,
So many ages ago,
Thus I've been taught, I suppose that it's so...
But sometimes there's doubt in a face.

[Chorus]

I am a seeker by nature, it seems...
I yearn to explore.
I have found secrets that challenge my soul to ignore.
Pinpoints of light--the least of my fears.
This puzzle far stranger appears:
A plate bearing numbers and labeled as "years"
Reads one hundred seventy-four.

[Chorus]

Why this discovery shook my foundations,
I must here relate:
When I first found it its import did not seem so great.
Imagine my thoughts the day I arrived,
Having been one year longer alive,
To find the last digit was no longer "five"...
What is our implacable fate?

[Chorus]

Here is my struggle: how can I continue
To bear this alone?
There must be reason and meaning in what I've been shown.
Though I have gone to places taboo,
Soon I must guide others there too.
We may never learn what we're counting down to,
But some truths have got to be known.

[Chorus]