Uploaded March 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago

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Fire in the Sky track 12. Thanks to rocketman0739 for providing high-quality versions of these songs.
Download the album here: archive.org/details/filk_fire_in_the_sky
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Lyrics:

Once I walked an endless land with a wanderer's swinging stride
And once upon a mighty steed forever I could ride
And once a tall ship rode the tide at midnight from the bay
And I could climb aboard her and travel far away

Through centuries and lifetimes, no journey twice the same
With love or fear to guide me on, seeking death or fame
Or hearing just a still, small voice that said “You cannot stay”
I could leave the past behind me and travel far away

But now the great jets thunder and they sing of distant lands
But all their promised wonders turn to dust within my hands
For I can travel half the world and return in half a day
And I fear that only death remains to take me far away

For with steel and steam and gasoline and turbines' whining scream
They have trapped me in a nightmare that is someone else's dream
Of a world so small and guarded, you could hold it in your hand
A world that knows no land called far away

So I waste my lives in dreaming or in bloody, useless war
But somewhere there's a flash of fire and a mighty rising roar
And I pray godspeed to those who ride, and I live now for the day
When I leave my world behind me and travel far away

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Prometheus, they say, brought God's fire down to man
And we've caught it, tamed it, trained it since our history began
Now we're going back to Heaven just to look Him in the eye
And there's a thunder 'cross the land and a fire in the sky.

Gagarin was the first, back in 1961,
When, like Icarus, undaunted, he climbed to reach the Sun.
And he knew he might not make it, for it's never hard to die,
But he lifted off the pad and rode a fire in the sky.

Yet a higher goal was calling, and we vowed to reach it soon,
And we gave ourselves a decade to put fire on the Moon.
And Apollo told the world we can do it if we try,
For there was one small step and a fire in the sky.

Then two decades from Gagarin, twenty years to the day,
Came a shuttle named Columbia to open up the way.
And they said she's just a truck, but she's a truck that's aiming high.
See her big jets burning, see her fire in the sky!

Yet the gods do not give lightly of the gifts that they have made
And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid.
Though a nation watched her falling, yet a world could only cry
As they passed from us to glory, riding fire in the sky.

Now the rest is up to us. There's a future to be won.
We must turn our faces outward—we will do what must be done.
For no cradle lasts forever; every bird must learn to fly.
And we're going to the stars, see our fire in the sky!
Yes, we're going to the stars, see our fire in the sky!