Download Astronomy Song
Jessia Defrancisco
"Astronomy" is a song by American rock band Blue Öyster Cult that has appeared on several of the band's albums. It was first released on their 1974 album Secret Treaties. Their second live album, Some Enchanted Evening, included a version with an extended guitar solo and a third version was included on the Imaginos album. It was also re-recorded for the band's Cult Classic collection in connection with the TV miniseries of Stephen King's The Stand. Most recently, the song was included on the A Long Day's Night album.
The song's lyrics are selected verses from a poem by Sandy Pearlman, the band's producer and mastermind behind their image, called "The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos". In the poem, which was later partially released under the BÖC moniker in the album Imaginos, aliens known as Les Invisibles guide an altered human named Imaginos, also called Desdinova, through history, playing key roles that eventually lead to the outbreak of World War I.
In "Astronomy", the character of Imaginos comes to realize his heritage and his role as the altered human. He is raised from the dead and transforms into the female persona[1] of Desdinova, who is also mentioned on the back cover of Secret Treaties and in the song "I Am the One You Warned Me Of" from the Imaginos album. References are made to celestial objects throughout the song: "the light that never warms" being the moon, "the queenly flux" the constellation Cassiopeia, though both may also serve as epithets or descriptions of Desdinova. "My dog, fixed and consequent" refers to Sirius, the dog star. The "Four Winds Bar" may be a reference to the Tropic of Cancer, compass rose, or an actual bar.
A music video of the 1988 version was released by Sandy Pearlman in the United Kingdom. The video had no footage of the band playing, and instead focused on the story told by the song. Longtime BÖC fan and author Stephen King recorded a spoken narration for the video, which is as follows:
Are moving at a million miles a day,
Alas, our first major error. All the stars visible to the naked eye are indeed within the Milky Way (not counting the combined light from other galaxies), but our orbital speed around the galactic center is about 200 km/s, or roughly 11 million miles a day. The song is off by an order of magnitude.
As with art, literature, and philosophy, the Tang dynasty (618-906) nurtured a Golden Age of development and innovation in science and technology that culminated in the Song dynasty (960-1279). The expansive exchange of foreign goods and information during the Tang, together with the high value placed upon close observation and analysis that characterized the Song, set the stage for vigorous scientific innovations. Important advances were made in astronomy, agriculture, industry, medicine, and military technologies.
"The Night Chicago Died" was written and recorded by the British group Paper Lace. They talk about Al Capone in the song, but got a lot of details wrong - understandable since they wrote it based on gangster movies.
Song is an associate professor of astronomy in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences astronomy and physics department. He teaches students about the origins of the universe, a topic he seeks answers to through his own research.
After earning his doctorate in astronomy at UGA, Song worked at the UCLA NASA Astrobiology Institute as an assistant scientist and postdoctoral researcher, at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii as an assistant astronomer and at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech as a staff scientist.
The dog days of August had begun. I was in Michigan for my son Jackson\u2019s birthday. Then we rented a car and headed out to Evanston, Illinois for a job. Jackson is a great guitar player and I\u2019m always curious about his wide spectrum of references. He was listening to some music he thought might interest me. Antoine Boyer and Tim Hensen. And that lead to other music: Yngwie Malmsteen\u2019s Far From the Sun, Iron Maiden and Metallica live in Mexico City. Suddenly I wanted to hear the Blue Oyster Cult song Astronomy. The song had been in my mind of late. In fact, my subscribers may have noticed the vapors of Astronomy trailing through The Melting. The nexus is Sirius the Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky. It lies in the constellation Canis Major the Greater Dog and guides the narrator as she proceeds through parallel worlds.
Call me Desdinova eternal light/ And don\u2019t forget my dog, fixed and consequent. These words drift from one world to another. For those who have read Year of the Monkey one has can make another connection. The lyrics to this magnificent song were written by my dear friend Sandy Pearlman, eccentrically brilliant writer and producer, who sadly died as I was writing the book. His presence is much felt within it.
Astronomy is on Blue Oyster Cult\u2019s third album which leads off with Career of Evil, an old poem of mine that the drummer Albert Bouchard set to music. Bookending the album is Astronomy, the song I most loved. In the seventies, I often stood with Sandy watching BOC play, in anticipation of Astronomy\u2019s opening notes building to an explosion of stars and lasers culminating with Donald \u201CBuck Dharma\u201D Roeser\u2019s transporting solos. His guitar work ever pure, never static, never a false note.
I had completely forgotten, as Jack and I listened to Astronomy in the car, that he and Sandy shared the same birthday. August 5th. I suppose though I had seemed to have forgotten some part of me didn\u2019t. Sandy Pearlman departed in the summer of 2019, embarking on his own celestial journey. I am all the better for having known him. I often listen to the song, singing along, jumping from my seat when they cry out HEY! Yeah I do that. Leap up in my room alone and miss my friends yet happy to be alive to remember. Sometimes on a clear night I take a walk, thinking about the power of music and friendship, and I never fail to gaze up in search of Sirius the Dog Star, the brightest in the heavens, fixed and consequent.
A couple of cautions here. Our staff is North American and European and as such, we stuck with English-language songs or instrumental songs so as not to make any cultural mistakes. But we'd love to hear your suggestions for international music in the forum.
There are so many space songs from Moby over the years that, like Bowie, it's hard to pick a single favorite. But this one sticks out thanks to its focus on unifying humanity through realizing we all ultimately come from the same origin story:
In this song, Ernie, the beloved Sesame Street character (voiced by Jim Henson), sings plaintively of the many sacrifices he would have to make should he reside on the moon, then decides such a life would be too burdensome to bear.
In this Frank Sinatra classic, the song's narrator of the well-known tune not only wants to be flown to the moon, but wishes to "play among the stars" and "see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars."
The author of many politically charged songs reflects on his childhood memories of watching the Apollo space missions, but bitterly concludes that "Now that the space race is over / It's been and it's gone, and I'll never get to the moon."
Below is a huge starting list of space music that we have organized by era. This is not meant to be the complete list of space-y tunes, as there are likely millions out there, but based on our research we have found quite a few songs to get you started. For simplicity, we have ordered these songs by approximate year of release.
I was listening to oldies music at work the other day and I pulled this song out of my flash drive repertoire. Listening to the words made me curious, so I Googled them, and here they are. And I wonder.
More than meets the eye is a tribute to astronomer Vera Rubin, one of the first scientists to detect the presence of dark matter in galaxies. The song very well describes the struggle of Rubin in a male-dominated society. Written by Sandy Cash, the song summarizes the life and work of the forgotten astronomer.
These songs have been extremely influential to my development in the world of music, and these two Bowie tunes may be his most well-known. However, the first one is poorly related to the actual outer space: there is no other mention of Mars other than in the final words of the chorus, when Bowie asks the great question, Is there life on Maaaaaaars?.
A lot more experimental, Spiritualized is a band with few limits. Their song Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space offers a thrilling space experience, making you feel small yet so important at the same time.
This is an album, not a song, and I really recommend it, not only because Brian Eno is an innovator in ambient music but also because of the story behind its creation. Apparently, Eno was so impressed by the Moon landing that he decided to create a soundtrack. For a much more practical purpose, he created the album as a soundtrack to the documentary For All Mankind. The original version of the album was abandoned as it had no commentary, only music.
Teen Skepchicks has the full lyrics if you want to follow along. This song was sponsored by The Coalition for Music Education for their Music Monday project, in collaboration with CBC Music and the Canadian Space Agency (Commander Hadfield and BNL are Canadian).
AstronomyGeneral informationRelease dateMay 7, 2021Length4:03AlbumSuperacheLabelRepublic RecordsSongwriter(s)Conan GrayProducer(s)Dan NigroSingles chronologyPreviousCurrentNext
Overdrive
Astronomy
People WatchingSuperache chronologyBest Friend"Astronomy"Yours"Astronomy" is a song by Conan Gray that was released on May 7th, 2021. The music video for the track was released the same day as the single's release. This song is featured as the fifth track in Conan's sophomore album Superache.