I have been working on this for what seems like forever and a day, and I finally managed to get a take I can live with. This is a song I wrote a few weeks ago following a certain event which I’ll elaborate on shortly. One thing that’s always bothered me as an artist going through art school was when someone was asked what their work meant and they said, “uh, I don’t know. I just thought it looked cool.”

Well, then, what’s the point? I think in a few of these cases, people knew exactly what it was supposed to represent, but it was such an intensely personal experience that they didn’t just want to share it with any random being who happened by. The majority of the cases, however, were art for art’s sake—no particular meaning except what you get out of it. I—the Artist—was just messing around, and by golly, look what popped out. I’ve seen more empty heads in art school than I’ve ever seen in corporate America.

Anyway, this song is not like that. It has a very specific meaning.

Hear, here:

The Sky is Different [4:00, 2.7mb]

The song is a tribute to those who gave their life in pursuit of spaceflight. It really came together after three Spaceship Company engineers were killed during an engine test for Space Ship Two. I had the opening phrase before that, but I didn’t know what it was saying until that happened. The title comes from when I was stargazing shortly after the incident and thinking how the whole endeavor of exploration and spaceflight has changed our perception of the universe—and on a more immediate level, how the sky is different following a spaceflight disaster. Still, no matter how tragic, we’ll go back.

-Ted