Sneak Preview - Dual Sunrise Over Magrathea

Week two of the Come For the Peaks, Stay For the Valleys Sneak Preview series, a weekly event in which we are posting a song off of our upcoming album, brings us to the opening track of the album, "Dual Sunrise Over Magrathea." Check it out at our myspace page. Listen now because next Monday there will be a whole new song!

The story behind this song. Hmmm. Well, the title comes from Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy when the fictional ancient planet of Magrathea is being introduced. The planet rotates around twin suns, so the sun rises twice. How badass is that!? I like the idea of binaries - dichotomies, polar opposites keeping each other balanced, the gravitational pull of two stars keeping each other in orbit, etc.

The song was kind of compiled from three different things: the title (because I thought the phrase "dual sunrise over Magrathea" was neat), some astronomy-centered lyrics, and a few parts to a spacey sounding song I had sitting around. The album as a whole as a lot to do with loss because, as I like to say, I got my ass handed to me in 2007. The lyrics (posted below) are pretty self-explanatory. Part of dealing with my loss was trying to keep my relationship balanced with a person who was really opposite from me. Two stars wanting to spin off on their own, but being pulled back in by gravity. Or some shit like that.

Musically, it's a fun song to play because it's all over the place, changing metres between the intro and the rest of the song and that squirreliness before the space jam at the end. For anyone who stalks me and my music past, you might recognize that I ripped off a chord progression from myself - the chord changes during the space jam at the end are the same as the end of "Cold Love, Hot War" from my first solo album released, like, 80 years ago.

Dual Sunrise Over Magrathea

You leapt off the terra firma
I’ve got a star map and telescope
I’m going to find you
And when I do, I won’t let go

The red shift that tells me where you are going
Says that you are already gone
An event horizon crossed
And I can’t believe what I’ve lost

On the other side
I will find you

I have no light, I have no heat
The burst, it was so bittersweet
It was just another star to expand and explode
So long

Enjoy! As an added bonus, here's video of us performing the song at the Crocodile last year with me wearing a ridiculous sparkly shirt!

P.S. Come see me play solo acoustic style this Thursday, September 25th at the lovely and charming Mars Bar. In fact, arrive early and have some mac & cheese from Cafe Venus before the show. I play at 8:30 PM.