About the Song
The Black Hole Song (D. Webb and J. Webb) – Most young people may need some explanation to understand the song. In the late 1960's and early 1970's the world was held hostage by the cold war: Two super powers threatening to destroy not only each other, but the entire world. Nuclear weapons abounded, enough stockpiled to literally destroy most life on Earth. The space race was in full throttle. The Soviet Union (Russia and the Baltic states) had a dynamic space program, beating the US into space with manned craft, sometimes at the expense of safety. Leonid Brezhnev was the "Secretary of the communist party" at the time and communication between the two super powers was a treasonable offense. The knowledge of the Soviet space program was gathered clandestinely and at great risk. Reports abounded about soviet space adventurers, called cosmonauts, who failed to return from space. My brother and I read an article by a writer named Frank Edwards. In his book, Strange World, he wrote about strange happenings including ghosts, UFOs and soviet space misadventures. One particular article about a soviet couple launched into orbit, intending to orbit the Moon for the first time. Apparently something went badly wrong, and the last communication from the capsule was: "If we do not get out, the world would never hear about it." The transmission suddenly ceased and the Lunuk capsule had vanished into the silence of space. Since I was busy learning about black holes at the time, it was an easy step to assume the spacecraft had left orbit and fallen into a black hole! The song is written in a sort of "Country music" style, and could very well be the ultimate country song. One would have to replace the space ship with a pickup truck, Brezhnev with momma, the astronomical objects with the city limits, and of course the black holes with bars or whiskey bottles. Can you spot the scientific inaccuracy in the second verse? Click here for the answer.
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Lyrics
I left here from Russia on a secret rocket shot, back in ‘73
I’ve been in space a long, long time, I’ve damn near forgot, Do you think they’ve forgotten about me?
chorus
Ole Breznev he did say that it would go alright, even though it is the first flight of its type
Well I’ve just passed the Moon, the Stars and the Sun, and I’m heading for Black hole number one
I’ve lost communication and my ship has gone off course, I passed galaxies and quasars too
If I don’t get my ship together I don’t know just what I’ll do, here comes black hole number two
chorus
Ole Breznev he did say that it would go alright, even though it is the first flight of its type
Just when I started to like the view, here comes black hole number two
I missed black hole number one by about a light year, and veered right past black hole number two
You might think that I’m lucky but this is the end of me, cause I’m heading straight for black hole number three
This is the last of me this universe will see, the ergosphere is right in front of me, I feel the tidal forces… streeching…..me….
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