Dark Side Of the Mars (Some March)

 

Tempo=126

Lyrics (in non-instrumental version):

Cloudy days so far away

The scent of a distant rain, sent in the air

We got here from there

There's no way back there from here

As space men, we're starving for air

 

[A reference to Elon Musk, the solar system is his toy. Miles From Mars is a reference to my album and the theme is the same: we are miles from Mars--so close but so far away. The quixotic pursuit of a Mars colony is the dark side].

Toys in the hands of a man
Man in the hands of a toy
Land is a toy in the hands of a man
We are biological things
We are not machines
We are miles from Mars

Dark side of the Mars

Dark side of the Mars

 

Texture of air, texture of light

Tones of voice and fragrance of sea

Mountains and lakes--which you are--permanently removed

A longing for life that could have been

Desire for life without a care

Life in the place it was meant to be

Dark side of the Mars

Dark side of the Mars

We are such delicate things
We are miles from Mars (Spiders From Mars)

***

The chord sequence In the organ solo section is a cycle of ii-Vs ascending up in fourths (or down in fifths), with the V in first inversion--and ends on F# Dorian as a transition point to the next section. 

Found voice is of a passage by astronomer James E. Keeler (1886):

Just to be regretted, that the habitability of the planets a subject of which astronomers profess to know little, has been chosen as a theme for exploitation by the romancer, to whom the step from habitability to inhabitants is a very short one.

Dark Side Of the Mars by meta4s

 ***

3/26/2022

If something starts as an ambient piece, or is just atmosphere, it usually stays that way--unlike traditional songs which can be rearranged. Traditional songs can add atmosphere, but ambient music can't add traditional instruments so easily because they stick out in the foreground too much. If you're going to use traditional instruments and atmosphere, everything has to be pushed to the background. If you have vocals, they have to be treated so that they could be placed farther away from the foreground. In ambient music nothing really is in the foreground, at least not for long. It is a low-contrast music. If you have a monochrome piece of art that's mostly grays and pastels, then add red accents, it pushes it all the way to the foreground. So it's true that ambient music is more like painting because you're using the same z-axis. Even though painting is on a flat plane, recorded music relies on spatiotemporal aspects. What I really like about music is that you can use that space which doesn't exist in visual art.