Rocket Man

[Steve Schear]

"Rocket Man"
By Tom Rapp (from the Pearls Before Swine album "The Use of Ashes", 1970)

My father was a rocket man
He often went to Jupiter or Mercury, to Venus or to Mars
My mother and I would watch the sky
And wonder if a falling star
Was a ship becoming ashes with a rocket man inside

My mother and I
Never went out
Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out
Or to escape the pain
We only went out when it rained

My father was a rocket man
He loved the world beyond the world, the sky beyond the sky
And on my mother's face, as lonely as the world in space
I could read the silent cry
That if my father fell into a star
We must not look upon that star again

My mother and I
Never went out
Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out
Or to escape the pain
We only went out when it rained

Tears are often jewel-like
My mother's went unnoticed by my father, for his jewels were the stars
And in my father's eyes I knew he had to find
In the sanctity of distance something brighter than a star
One day they told us the sun had flared and taken him inside

My mother and I
Never went out
Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out
Or to escape the pain
We only went out when it rained


My father was a rocket man
He often went to Jupiter or Mercury, to Venus or to Mars
My mother and I would watch the sky
And wonder if a falling star
Was a ship becoming ashes with a rocket man inside

My mother and I
Never went out
Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out
Or to escape the pain
We only went out when it rained

My father was a rocket man
He loved the world beyond the world, the sky beyond the sky
And on my mother's face, as lonely as the world in space
I could read the silent cry
That if my father fell into a star
We must not look upon that star again

My mother and I
Never went out
Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out
Or to escape the pain
We only went out when it rained

Tears are often jewel-like
My mother's went unnoticed by my father, for his jewels were the stars
And in my father's eyes I knew he had to find
In the sanctity of distance something brighter than a star
One day they told us the sun had flared and taken him inside

My mother and I
Never went out
Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out
Or to escape the pain
We only went out when it rained


"Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be 
fooled."
-- Richard P. Feynman