a song odyssey

Once upon a time, I was listening to my Walkman (that's right) on the school bus on my way home from middle school, when a glorious, epic song came on the radio. After the station played it, they didn't say the title or artist. So, typical of my adolescent obsessiveness, I listened to my Walkman every day on the way home from school for the next two months, hoping they would play that song again so I could find out the artist. (This was before the internet, guys. I remember listening to the radio in my bedroom with a blank tape at the ready, just in case one of my favorite songs came on so I could hit the "record" button.) I never heard that song on the radio again.

Over fifteen years later and that song still bothered me from time to time. I wanted to hear it again. The internet was around now, but I was 12 or 13 when I first heard that song and I couldn't remember any lyrics or even key words anymore. All I remembered was that there was a part about a space shuttle launch. I actually found lists on the internet like "top ten songs about space travel" and "space music playlist for astronauts." I still could not find it. I even brought up my dilemma to my boyfriend once. He was convinced I was talking about David Bowie's Space Oddity. I was sure I was not. But, really, what did I know anymore? Like I said, I couldn't remember any lyrics and I had only heard the song once in my life. Maybe it was Space Oddity. Or maybe it wasn't. Or maybe the song that sounded awesome to 12 year old me would sound awful to present day me. So, I gave up on my search about a year ago.

Then, yesterday while I was making up the bed, I heard the chorus to that song playing in the other room. I recognized it instantly and remembered all of the lyrics in the chorus "Earth below us, drifting, falling..." And it was still awesome! But it was a woman singing, not a man like I remembered. My boyfriend was listening to his Shiny Toy Guns station on Pandora and apparently they had done a cover of it.

 I would like to present to you: Major Tom by Peter Schilling