Midnight on Neptune

Yesterday, after I reached a satisfactory stopping point working on Fantasy Cycles, I pulled out another old set of chords bearing the whimsical title of "Midnight on Neptune, a name I free-associated back when I created the recording on... September 6, 2016, according to the file info. I would forget these seeds of songs if I didn't record them when the ideas come to me. Recall that one of my best recent songs, Inspiration, started with an Android video I made when I woke up in the wee small hours one morning and started playing around on my blue Stratocaster unplugged.

As I found it, the pretty chord changes of Midnight on Neptune were realized via a relaxed folk-rock throwback drum loop, bass guitar, and three guitar tracks going for a bell-like sound texture reminiscent of the Byrds. It was in need of considerable work to flesh out the concept.

I decided to write lyrics stemming from the title.  The first line that came to me was

It's midnight on Neptune and we're here all alone.

This would be the chorus, the musical theme the song begins and ends with. Words came quickly and I finished the rough set of lyrics within a few hours that included doing some quick research on the planet Neptune. "Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, ice giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system."

The story, told only in impressionistic hints of conversation, centers on two space travelers who have made the first visit by earth people to this remote planet. The voyage was long and dangerous and Neptune, as they knew, is an inhospitable world, four times larger than earth and 80 times further from the sun. It's very cold with an atmosphere toxic to humans. Although they are extraordinary people chosen for their intelligence, abilities, and physical as well as psychological resilience, the visitors from earth feel disoriented and disconnected from the human community as they question the meaning and value of their astounding accomplishment, arriving alive on the outermost planet of our solar system.

I don't have an adequate demo at present- besides considering some changes to the structure, I plan to redo the guitar parts and see if I can record a passable vocal before considering sharing it with anyone or performing it.