SONG: “Oceans Under Mars”. (WAV version here.)
ARTIST: grant.
SOURCE: PhysOrg, 12 Aug 2024, “Scientists find oceans of water on Mars. It’s just too deep to tap.“, as used in the post “There are oceans on Mars – but they’re too deep to get to..”
ABSTRACT: This turned out better than expected. I hadn’t found too much going on in the science mags and journals over the last month, and was sort of slack about posting those stories I did find to the feed here. So the subject matter for songs was limited.
On the other hand, I was fortunate enough to get a small part in some friends’ surrealistic radio-drama podcast, American Doom (on Apple Podcasts here), and my part (a mysterious drifter named Wayne Smile) involved me playing chords that were either “mysterious” or “mournful” supposedly in the cab of truck traveling across a dystopian kitsch highway. There are tiki drinks and a talking parrot. Well, I’m still tinkering with open-G tuning on a little 3/4-size guitar, and for the purposes of ART, tuned the B-string down a half-step so the tuning turned into open-G minor, which is nicely melancholy and a little mysterious. I mean, it’s not a jazz chord, but it slides well. The chord progression and hook came out of my improvising into a microphone for the drama.
It’s a super-simple blues/Americana progression and is built like some of my favorite songs and unlike most of what I do, doesn’t have weird changes or psychedelic harmonies. The oddest thing about it is the guitar solo, which is a fortunate accident. I put down the main bass track and between serious takes, was having a lot of fun just playing solos over that part, so I recorded one, and then decided to see what would happen if I just pitched it up an octave, the way I used to pitch a guitar down an octave to fake a bass. And there it is — that sound. I’m now mostly positive Tom Waits did that on a couple of albums to get that guitar sound.
At any rate, it works. This song does nothing to erode the connection in my mind between sad guitars and Mars exploration, especially unmanned Mars exploration. (Stellar phenomena tend to be heavy distortion; Mars is more desolate.) I imagine someone could dance a slow cha-cha to this one. There’s not exactly a reference in my lyrics to life being in the subterranean ocean (and to be totally accurate, no one is really suggesting human astronauts *drink* it, not outright), but maybe the “I” in this could be someone or something used to living down there, two Mariana Trenches deep. I started out thinking I’d write this as a brag-song, since I spent an afternoon last week listening to “Back in Black” a few times. (Is that a strange thing to do? Whatever, man.) It was at least a decent writing prompt, especially in a minor key – not a key normally used for boasting. One good consequence of the format was that it made it easier to not write too many words per line.
“Oceans Under Mars” would be a good album title.
LYRICS:
I can see in the dark
I can breathe underground
I can sink like the Mariana Trench (times 2)
And keep going down
I’ve got so many reservoirs
I’ve got oceans under Mars.We’ve got a seismic map
We’ve got a rover on a hill
We’re in a desert made of dark red sand
We’ve got a 12-mile drill
We’ll have to go that far
We’ll drink oceans under MarsYou can try to find
The places where I hide
Leave the light behind
For miles and miles and miles inside
Dark as tar between the stars
Are the oceans under MarsThe oceans under Mars.
The oceans under Mars.