From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V5 #209 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Tuesday, August 29 2000 Volume 05 : Number 209 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: Song of the Week - One of our Submarines [Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: Song of the Week - One of our Submarines Like probably everyone else here, I haven't been able to think of much else besides the tragedy aboard the Russian submarine Kursk, and I hope it isn't considered disrespectful in any way to feature this song as Song of the Week - I mean it as something of a tribute to the men who were aboard. The similarities of the situations taking place in the song, to those which really happened recently in the Barents Sea, are chilling, as many here have already pointed out. I'm also featuring this song because I personally keep thinking of it, I have not really been able to keep all of this out of my mind lately it seems. For instance... while working in Cornell's book lab last week I restored several classic Russian children's books from their collection, and I found myself thinking the men of the Kursk might have read any of these as children. And last night I even dreamt I was aboard another doomed submarine which I knew would never again rise to the surface, though no one else on board was aware of the impending disaster. I couldn't decide whether it would be more merciful to tell them or not to tell them, and finally took it in hand to sink the sub myself while everyone else was asleep, so they wouldn't have to suffer. Methinks I'm taking this a little too much to heart... but it's hard not to. I think everyone can sympathise with this disaster to some degree. Here are the lyrics to One of our Submarines, as listed in Retrospectacle. Please write in to give your own personal feelings on this song, what it's meant to you, if the meaning has changed or evolved for you over time, etc. I look forward to hearing what everyone thinks! One of our Submarines written by Thomas Dolby recorded and mixed August 1982 One of our submarines is missing tonight Seems she ran aground on manoeuvres One of our submarines A hungry heart To regulate their breathing One more night The Winter Boys are freezing in their spam tin The Baltic moon Along the Northern seaboard And down below The Winter Boys are waiting for the storm Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye Shallow water - chanel and tide And I can trace my history Down one generation to my home In one of our submarines One of our submarines The red light flicker, sonar weak Air valves hissing open Half her pressure blown away Flounder in the ocean See the Winter Boys Drinking heavy water from a stone Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye Shallow water - channel and tide Bye-bye empire, empire bye-bye Tired illusion drown in the night And I can trace my history Down one generation to my home In one of our submarines One of our submarines One of our submarines One of our submarines is missing tonight Seems she ran aground on manoeuvres One of our submarines ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 22:33:32 -0400 From: Robin Thurlow Subject: Alloy: another visualized 'prediction' of at-sea disaster The similarities of the Song of the Week to a real-life event reminds me of the other Morgan Robertson who wrote a detailed novelization of the Titanic disaster 14 years before it happened, in 1898... in Robertson's novel the ship was called Titan, and many details were amazingly similar to the real event. Thomas has said he doesn't know of any personal family relation to the novelist Morgan Robertson. Strange though... very strange indeed... ~spooooky~ Robin T ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V5 #209 ***************************