Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Bake Sale for NASA

I haven't posted any of my music or lyrics on here because I have been writing anonymously and I have had an issue with people trying to steal my intellectual property in the past. However, when Jen Scheer (@flyingjenny), one of my favorite SpaceTweeps (appropriate, as it turns out she started the group) asked to see the lyrics to the following song I realized that maybe it's not such a bad thing to mix these parts of my life. In fact, I feel like I'm starting to become CraftLass more and more in real life as well as online, since I've been meeting people in person who I first found online for the first time in years. Maybe that should become my new stage name as well as pen name...?

I also am quite proud of this song and think it's timely, so I'd rather have it spreading around regardless of if I ever make a dime on it than keep it to myself. I performed it last night for the first time and the response was very positive, with a few people going so far as to say it made them think about their own feelings about NASA and funding. I tried to make it as accurate as possible, using information from Wayne Hale's blog, NASA's website in general, and posts and tweets by SpaceTweeps as my inspiration. Who am I kidding? The song popped into my head and pretty much wrote itself while I was reading those things and watching the Augustine hearings more than the other way around.

Okay, here goes:

Bake Sale for NASA

We sent men to the moon because of some lines
In a speech that inspires to this day
We learn more about Earth from orbit
Than we can in any other way

Yet we spend and we spend and we spend and we spend
On corporate welfare that will never end
Programs that waste more than they create
Yet we’re happy to let NASA deflate

Chorus:
So let’s hold a bake sale for NASA
Show our love for a program that actually works
The cookies are sure to be out of this world
We could even have astros as clerks

Give folks a chance to learn first-hand
Why we need these adventures in space
How it affects them directly at home
And elevates the whole human race

A very large chunk of what sets us apart
Is our driving need to explore
Humans are best when we’re trying to test
Our limits and find we have more

The more that we learn the less that we know
So further on still we must go
To answer the questions that in the past
We didn’t even know to ask

Chorus:
So let’s hold a bake sale for NASA
Show our love for a program that actually works
The cookies are sure to be out of this world
We could even have astros as clerks

Give folks a chance to learn first-hand
Why we need these adventures in space
How it affects them directly at home
And elevates the whole human race

Bridge:
To turn this whole endeavor over
To private investors and other lands
Would be giving up the greatest power
We have in our nation’s hands

Some skeptics say we should keep funds at bay
Until we have fed everyone
But we produce more food than ever before
Because of what NASA has done

Nearly every invention created for space
On Earth has found a useful place
Saving some lives and improving many more
Like we’ve never seen before

Chorus:
So let’s hold a bake sale for NASA
Show our love for a program that actually works
The cookies are sure to be out of this world
We could even have astros as clerks

Give folks a chance to learn first-hand
Why we need these adventures in space
How it affects them directly at home
And elevates the whole human race

Bridge:
In these days where folks are always trying
To take real science out of schools
We need to step up our efforts
Or become a nation of fools

I could go on for days extolling the ways
Investment in NASA makes sense
But I have only this song to convince those who are wrong
And think it’s a wasteful expense

I will dare to say it’s our greatest success
Less than 1% is hardly excess
In a budget that keeps us all in debt
At least here we can see what we get

Chorus:
So let’s hold a bake sale for NASA
Show our love for a program that actually works
The cookies are sure to be out of this world
We could even have astros as clerks

Give folks a chance to learn first-hand
Why we need these adventures in space
How it affects them directly at home
And elevates the whole human race
Human race
Humans in space!!


(If you like these lyrics, I'm talking to a producer right now about trying to get at least a simple acoustic version recorded quickly and will post it here when it's ready, I promise!)

Also posted at the Space Tweep Society Blog.

2 comments:

  1. I think this is a great song. I am not musical, so it never would have occurred to me to write a song to get this message across, but it was a wonderful idea and execution :)

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  2. Thank you so much, Jen! Your enthusiasm is quite infectious and I can't tell you how nice it is that someone actually with NASA likes it. You all do such amazing work and it's not appreciated enough. :)

    LOL, as music is about all I'm qualified to do, I guess we all make a good team, in a sense.

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