Friday, January 21, 2005
The Coming of the Cubes
Here are the lyrics for Coming of the Cubes, in all their 1993-ish glory.
The parts 4 and 5 that were on Flvxxvm Florvm is the Devil are the section below entitled "Disappointment" and an instrumental section that follows and isn't mentioned in the lyrics below.
"The Stoffonians" is the same music as the song This is How it Feels.
The complete work would have nine sections:
1. Opening (instrumental)
2. Question and Answer
3. Digging
4. Disappointment
5. Interim (instrumental)
6. The Stoffonians
7. The Battle
8. The Bar is Crossed
9. Closing (instrumental)
I remember someone telling me that the music I was writing for "Question and Answer" sounded like something that Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs would listen to.
The parts 4 and 5 that were on Flvxxvm Florvm is the Devil are the section below entitled "Disappointment" and an instrumental section that follows and isn't mentioned in the lyrics below.
"The Stoffonians" is the same music as the song This is How it Feels.
The complete work would have nine sections:
1. Opening (instrumental)
2. Question and Answer
3. Digging
4. Disappointment
5. Interim (instrumental)
6. The Stoffonians
7. The Battle
8. The Bar is Crossed
9. Closing (instrumental)
I remember someone telling me that the music I was writing for "Question and Answer" sounded like something that Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs would listen to.
***************************
* THE COMING OF THE CUBES *
***************************
by Jeffrey Robertson
voices :
Student (later Scientist)
Chorus of humanity
Stoffonians
--- Question and Answer ---
Student: Where do all the cubes come from ?
Chorus: Nobody knows, my son.
Student: Are the cubes all there is to earth ?
Chorus: As far as we have gone.
Student: What was there before the cubes ?
Chorus: We have no idea.
Student: How old are they, anyway ?
Chorus: They've always been here.
Student: What makes the bar around the earth ?
Chorus: We think it is the cubes.
Student: Why can't the bar be crossed by man ?
Chorus: We don't have a clue.
Student: I will be a scientist
a man who knows the truth
I will learn to cross the bar
and understand the cubes
Chorus: There are things that shouldn't be,
and things that can't be known
the secrets of the bar and cubes
are better left alone
Student: How will we ever leave the earth
if we never cross the bar ?
Chorus: Who would ever want to leave ?
We have so much right here !
Student: But what they had said that when
man still lived in the caves ?
Chorus: Speak no more your blasphemy
upon our fathers' graves !
Student: I won't bother with you more
you will not understand.
I'll not be a boy of yours
its time I was a man.
--- Digging ---
Scientist: I've been digging ever since
I left home months ago
to find whats underneath the cubes
and what I need to know.
For many days and nights I searched
deep beneath the ground
There's something strange within the earth
its strange, what I have found.
The earth is not made up of cubes
the cubes are just on top
inside its made of something else
the ancients called it "rocks"
I've found where the old ones lived
we thought they were a myth
but in a time before the cubes
such people really lived.
My search is almost reached its end
for what I want to know :
how did the cubes come about ?
and how to cross the bar ?
I've found a musty manuscript
in a long-forgotten toungue
but soon I will have cracked the code
and read the ancients' song.
--- Disappointment ---
Scientist: I have read the manuscript
I know how the cubes were made
A scientist invented them
He loved what he had made
They multiplied and multiplied
and over-ran the globe
and everything the ancients had
was buried by the cubes
Chorus: We told you so, yes we did
of things best left unknown
a foolish scientist like you
brought ruin to their home
Science you should never trust
and never trust the brain
for progress is fairy-tale
that brings us only pain.
Scientist: Enough ! I will not hear such things
I can't beleive its true
that nations that were once so great
were ruined by the cubes
There must be some good come of this
for I've still more yet to read
and how to cross the bar, my friends
of this I still have need.
Chorus: And know you never will, young fool
of things best left alone
you'll no more spoil the order now
we've come to take you home.
Forget your foolish manuscript
come back into the sun
there are many things to do at home
and much work to be done.
--- The Stoffonians ---
Scientist and Chorus: From the distant world of Ristkon
the Stoffonians, they came
with the flags of evil empire
for to put the earth in chains.
Worshipping their dark gods
in their starships long and curved
with their gamma bombs and lasers
to make all the humans serve.
They circled round our planet
and sent signals in all toungues
to the people of all countries,
and they sang their dreadful song:
Stoffonians: You will kneel before the Emporer,
surrender to our might.
You will pray to Holy Ristkon
and Great Parkep day and night.
You will see that it is better
to have us rule you than to be
the silly little savages
you seem to be today.
You will work for us with pleasure
and be happy you're alive
you will give your sons for labor
and your daughters for our wives.
--- The Cubes to the Rescue ---
Scientist: We had almost given up all hope
The evil Empire simply seemed too strong
Chorus: but they never counted on the cubes
the cubes somehow could not let us be harmed
Scientist: First the bar it held their forces back
they pounded it with laser beams and bombs
Chorus: the laser beams just bounced back into space
the gamma bombs went off without a sound
Scientist: The Cubes piled into giant growing stalks
until their tops were high above the bar
Chorus: one will never be the same again
after one has seen the Cubes make war.
Scientist: The aliens they fired upon the Cubes
The Cubes were knocked about but still intact
Chorus: piled upon the bar up in the sky
the glowing cubes prepared for their attack
Scientist: The light we saw was brighter than the sunshine
the fleet was decimated but for one -
Chorus: a shuttle craft it limped back home to Ristkon
and the skies of earth were peaceful once again.
--- The Bar is Crossed ---
Chorus: Cubes, Cubes, wonderful Cubes
Cubes, Cubes, beatiful Cubes
Scientist: I have found the secret now
I know what goes round
We've all seen so many things
but this makes it profound.
The iron rules of logic are
what makes the bar hold fast.
Think of only math and science
and then only may you pass
The Stoffonians were beaten
because they never freed their minds
they thought of myths and demons
even in their starships fine.
Chorus: Cubes, Cubes, wonderful Cubes
Cubes, Cubes, beatiful Cubes
Scientist: The Bar shall no more hold us
but it will protect us ever more
and when we travel to the stars
with us the Cubes will go.
We will build our own starships
and travel past the skies.
To find new worlds for our people
with the Cubes there by our side.
And the Stofonians won't harm us
for the shuttle craft that flew
and made it back to Ristkon
carried seeds from which Cubes grow.
Chorus: Cubes, Cubes, wonderful Cubes
Cubes, Cubes, beautiful Cubes
--- End ---