Songs for Saturday: The Rambling Silver Rose

[mdlbear]

I mentioned yesterday that the minivan we sold yesterday was named Rosie, from the character in my song "The Rambling Silver Rose" [ogg] [mp3], which in turn was about Rosie's relationship with the eponymous spacecraft. That, in turn, was the name Colleen and I chose for our first minivan, a silver Mercury Villager. This post is about the song.

The story the it tells was loosely inspired by the some of Cynthia McQuillin and Leslie Fish's songs about spaceships, spaceport bars, and tough, hard-drinking, independent-minded women. The song doesn't say much about the Rose, and my view of her didn't really come together until I tried to write a backstory, but she's sentient. A bit of Helva in there, obviously, though computer not cyborg. I'm not sure why I tend to write love stories between AIs and humans, but there you go. C.f. "Silk and Steel", "Demon Lover", and "Besties". (BTW Lady Melody and Rose inhabit the same timeline about 250 years apart.)

I don't remember much about the writing process -- it was nearly 30 years ago -- but obviously the title came first; the first verse and last two lines of chorus probably came next, but I don't remember the order. The change from "in" to "she's" in the final repeat was suggested by N while we were scripting it for Lookingglass Folk.

I've mentioned elsewhere that I don't usually know whether the song I'm writing is any good until I get to a line that gives me a physical reaction. (My little bear-like brain isn't all that good at identifying emotions, so I have to go by what my body is telling me.) In this song the line was -- and still is -- As she drifts out in the darkness, sleeping wrapped in shining stars.

The Rambling Silver Rose Copyright 1992 Stephen Savitzky. CC by-nc-sa/4.0. ``She's just a piece of space-junk,'' they told Rosie at the yard; ``Her ports are etched, her linings cracked--she wouldn't get you far. Unlucky, and a killer, too--the life support's been holed; She's not worth half her mass in scrap.'' She quickly told them, ``Sold!'' chorus (inst.) She was just an old tramp freighter on the belt-to-Saturn run, Hauling heavy metals outward, ice and methane toward the Sun, But with cargo tankage empty she pulls 2.7 g-- Rosie fitted her for charter, to run fast and fleet and free. And she always knew that she was born to follow a wandering star; She's had a love in every port, a drink in every bar, But the lady's well contented with the wandering life she chose; She'll go where her wild heart takes her in the Rambling Silver Rose. Now if Rosie walked into the room you might not look her way, But if she caught you with her eye, you'd beg for her to stay; By morning you might sell your soul to keep her past the dawn, But the wandering star is calling, and the Rambling Rose is gone. And she always knew that she was born to follow a wandering star; She's had a love in every port, a drink in every bar, But the lady's well contented with the wandering life she chose; She'll go where her wild heart takes her in the Rambling Silver Rose. They'll drink her health this evening in a hundred spaceport bars As she drifts out in the darkness, sleeping wrapped in shining stars, But freedom is worth more to her than either love or life; She may take a hundred lovers, but she'll never be a wife. And she always knew that she was born to follow a wandering star; She's had a love in every port, a drink in every bar, But the lady's well contented with the wandering life she chose; She'll go where her wild heart takes her in the Rambling Silver Rose. She'll go where her wild heart takes her -- she's the Rambling Silver Rose.

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Comments

[archangelbeth]

*admires*

[mdlbear]

*beams*