Stuck Here...

Stuck Here on a Starship for a Hundred Years Without No Body Blues

Lyrics © 1984 Stephen Savitzky. CC-by-nc-sa. Music: Talking Blues (traditional arr. Savitzky)

Ever wonder what it would be like to have your mind uploaded into a computer? You could live practically forever...


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G C
  When you build a ship to  sail deep space
D7
You  can't have a crew of mortal race
G C
  'Cause a hundred years from  star to star
D7
With a  human crew is just too far.
G
  Think of all the beer you'd have to carry.
C
  Not to mention food.
D7
  And, uh, other necessities.

So you fill your ship with a robot crew
And you build a computer captain, too.
You get some experience for free
From some old spacer's personality.
Maybe an old shuttle pilot
Who's just learned from his last mistake.
That's where I come in.

So you take some bloke who's halfway dead
And you haul him home and you
  scan his head
And a hundred years of flying high
Is a damned good deal when you're
  about to die.
'Til you've had a decade or two to
  think it over.
Gets lonely out here.
A thousand frozen colonists don't count.

So there behind my solar sail
Are five hundred hunks of frozen tail
But if I thawed one and you know I could
It wouldn't do me a bit of good.
What would I use?
I've got no damned body, just a starship.
Couldn't even... oh, the heck with it!

Now a couple of billion miles astern
It's another lonesome sucker's turn.
So I'll radio back and say ``Hey you--
Oh, I didn't know they took women, too!''
``Lovely night tonight, isn't it?
Look at all them pretty stars.
Yeah, me too.''

So we'll talk, and murmer ``I love you''
Like other star-crossed lovers do
And in eighty years we've made a date--
Did you ever see two starships mate?
We've got our robot crews,
And we figure they can put together--
Oh, none of your damned business!