Europe -- "The Final Countdown"

Please, please, please, before you do anything else, watch this. Ohhhhh my god. I could watch that 100 times in a row. Wow. I am having trouble composing myself and going on with this post. Everyone go back and watch it again all the way through while I pull it together.

Ahem.

DA DA DA DA, DA DA DA DA DA .... DA DA DA DA, DA DA DA DA DA DA DA.

Awesome!

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome EUROPE!!!!


We're leaving together / But still it's farewell / And maybe we'll come back to earth, who can tell?

Wikipedia says the lyrics to this song were inspired by David Bowie's "Space Oddity." I'm sure Mr. Bowie was absolutely just bursting at the seams with pride when he learned of this.

OK, so clearly the protagonists here are heading into space, but they don't seem to have planned the trip very well. Will we come back to Earth? Who can tell? Initially I thought this was like a post-apocalyptic thing, and these people were heading into space to escape some awful disaster. This would explain the clear lack of foresight. But "Space Oddity" is just about an astronaut, and there's no clear indication here that anything has gone wrong on Earth, so ....

I guess there is no one to blame / We're leaving ground / Will things ever be the same again?

No one to blame for what? What happened? If this is indeed some kind of apocalyptic event, I'm sure there is *someone* to blame. If not, what are you talking about??

It's the final countdown / The final countdown

Woohoo! The persistence of the bombastic keyboard riff that made this song famous indicates to me that this launch is something to be excited about, not a grim flight from a world gone terribly wrong.

We're heading for Venus and still we stand tall

And yet, this excitement is almost surely misplaced. Venus has an atmospheric pressure 93 times that of the Earth, and surface temperatures of 860 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, I hope you like breathing carbon dioxide and nitrogen! At least you're standing tall, though, so you have that going for you.

'Cause maybe they've seen us and welcome us all, yeah

Oh dear. Europe's lead singer, the awesomely named Joey Tempest, apparently believes that there is sentient life on Venus. This crew really should've consulted NASA, or a book, or anyone with a brain in their head, before embarking on this journey.

With so many light years to go and things to be found

Wikipedia: "The nearest known star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.23 light-years away. The fastest outward-bound spacecraft yet sent, Voyager I, has covered 1/600th of a light-year in 30 years and is currently moving at 1/18,000th of the speed of light. At this rate, a journey to Proxima Centauri would take 72,000 years."

Joey Tempest, unless you have discovered a wormhole or have found a way to circumvent the theory of relativity, I think you are in for some serious disappointment and most likely death.

I'm sure that we'll all miss her so / It's the final countdown

What a magical song.