Every Twelve Seconds

An unusually sad one from me, although the music is actually on the positive side.

This one's on my tape.

Nothing can be changed, my final hour's come,
Oh I can move my limbs a bit, but it won't help me at all.
Maybe they can see me, waving goodbye
Through their telescope.

I'm feeling very calm, though my skin has turned to ice,
Waiting for the cylinder to grant my final breath.
And I talk a bit, just to break the silence,
But it's not worth it.

Every twelve seconds I get to see the Sun
Rising and setting in my field of view;
The ship is just a dark shape receding in the blaze
Then night falls again,
And the stars wait for me, the stars wait for me.

It's an hour and a half since the safety cable broke,
It's no one's fault, just sad, just sad;
And I expect my wife already knows,
They'll have called her.

I reckon I'll be the first to travel to the stars,
The journey's long and cold, but I'll get there one day.
A million million years in a dead straight line,
Spinning all the way.