All songs
copyrighted
by David Rood
except as noted.
Five Full Moons of Formalhaut Four [the Bad Luck Song]
6/10/01Story
Yeah, I get asked this a lot.This isn't based on any story, at least not to my knowledge. For a long time I'd wondered whether werebears and wereboars and whatnot were tied to the Moon, just like werewolves; and what would they do on Jupiter, which has at the least four major moons?
The career of being a Jumper, exploring systems of natural wormholes, comes out of many stories and novels that include interstellar travel by use of a network left behind by some ancient race. I needed a job appropriate for people willing to take risks, because I feel the only way to respond to a world gone mad is to be even madder. For people who act weird, the facade breaks down in the face of genuine craziness, as well it should.
The music is not far from a rip-off of Bob Dylan's "Hurricane"; the pilots' names were influenced by [of all things] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire's Mad-Eye Moody, which always reminded me of Genesis' "Mad Man Moon", which title reminded me of this song. I'm not claiming it's logical, but that's the story.
Lyrics
It's a [am] dangerous job, [G] but a [F] hell of a thrill [G]and the [am] only way to take [G] the [F] frontiers farther [G]
[am] Dive into a singularity, [G] [F] hope you come out
[G] Finding your way back is even harder
[C] Around a Jumper's [d] neck you'll find
[C] A dozen good-luck [d] charms
[C] It takes only once for [dm7] any one
Of a [E] thousand [E7] things to go [Eaug] wrong [E]
We beat the odds for the hundredth time
And celebrated with great sex
Hot-Hand Harry did a hundred and four
Nobody's broken his record yet
We blew into the Formalhaut system
Planet Four's a paradise
There's five space stations, five LaGrange 1 points
And they were all lined up on the same side
(chorus)
[F] Walk under a ladder when it [Bb] starts to sway
[C] Look at your bride on your [am] wedding day
[dm] Hang a horseshoe right side up right [Bb] over your door
But [E7] don't see five full moons on Formalhaut [am] Four
All that we wanted was to go planetside
For some well-deserved R&R
Gafiate with the pleasures of the flesh
Spend our credits like running water
We went to the Cantina to get a ride
Most of the pilots were too drunk to fly
The few of them that were still coherent
Just refused and wouldn't even tell us why
Well just about then we heard a scrape and a clunk
And a distorted man hove into view
Cap-Crazy Charlie didn't give us a glance
He just took a drink and said, "I'll take you."
Well we couldn't believe that he was still alive
After everything they said he'd done
He played Chicken with a comet, took van Allen showers
Courting disaster was his idea of fun
Now plenty of folks will go and tell you
We're the most dangerous couple around
We wanted our vacation, and if we hesitated
To fly with him we knew we'd never live it down
Well, the only name my gal has ever used
Is Moxie, and she walked up to him
And said, "I hear you're pretty tame, but we're in a hurry;
So tell me, when do we begin?"
We asked him to set us down just before dawn
He said, "You'll take what you get," and he cursed
And he added that because he didn't like our looks
He would do the whole flight in reverse
The acceleration couches were no good to us then
We found ourselves crushed against the wall
Charlie sang off-key and he steered with his feet
While doing tricks with yo-yos in free fall
All across the planet people stopped in their tracks
And they stared up in rapt wonderment
At the streak of colour that was most of our fuel
We were headed for a rapid interment
Moxie picked herself out of the wreckage and said,
"I'm feeling hungry; how about you?"
There were five full moons and five kinds of lycanthrope
And most of them were feeling hungry too
Walk under a ladder when it starts to sway
Look at your bride on your wedding day
Hang a horseshoe right side up right over your door
But don't see five full moons on Formalhaut Four
Some people become bears and some become wolves
And some of them grow hooves and tusks
Cap-Crazy Charlie was neither of those,
And we'd landed not at dawn but at dusk
We heard the rustling in the bushes all around
The teeth were closing in from all sides
There was a hideous screech and a claw on my shoulder
Now we know where Charlie learned how to fly
Moxie had a grip on my right leg
Something big and hairy had a hold on hers
She lost her grip, and she screamed as she fell,
"I'll tell everyone that flying with Charlie's for the birds!"
Charlie took me up to the side of a cliff,
and I saw, oh my God, there were hatchlings in his nest
I didn't wait around to see if I was dinner
I fell a hundred feet before I caught him by the neck
Walk under a ladder when it starts to sway
Look at your bride on your wedding day
Hang a horseshoe right side up right over your door
But don't see five full moons on Formalhaut Four
My newest good-luck charm around my neck is a claw
Charlie's missing a toe off his one remaining foot
Moxie showed up grinning with some hair in her mouth, saying,
"Babe, I gotta get you into a furry suit."
Well, we have a hundred stories like this one I'm telling you
Not all our troubles ended with the rising sun
We got back our ship, and we headed into space
Back to the school of last chances for Adventure 101
Walk under a ladder when it starts to sway
Look at your bride on your wedding day
Hang a horseshoe right side up right over your door
But [E7] believe me, brother, it's no lie
I'd [E7] rather pour salt in my eye
Than [am] ever [G] look up [F] in the [E] sky
And [E7] see the five full moons of Formalhaut [am] Four
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