Jocko Homomorphism - Theorist's Dilemma

from SpinTunes 18 Round 2 by Spintunes

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about

Off-the-grid tempo challenge? What a gift to an experimentalist! That really Oingos my Boingos. I decided to emphasize the anxiety with plenty of meter changes and modulation, too.

In Ursula K le Guin's "The Dispossessed", a physicist moves to a new planet to collaborate with his intellectual peers. No one on his world can keep up with him. Worse, he is breaking generations-old taboo by reaching out to the forbidden planet Urras. Tension builds throughout the narrative as he realizes the gulf between his anarchist ideals versus the capitalists' desire for galactic conquest. He revolts and broadcasts his work to the universe, rather than see it become a state monopoly for war.

The piece never settles on a key. I go out of my way to use lots of major triads -- it's all a little too sweet. Oh yes, and the entire piece is accelerating. If you hear a slow-down, it's a trap!

lyrics

Dodge assassination
Mob retaliation
Home world is too hostile
Make way for the exile

Climb aboard the starship
Hope I get a round trip
Hitching on a freighter
Peers denounce me traitor

And I'm staying up all night
I got this passion in my brain
Just please let me explain

And I'm staying up all night
I got this passion in my brain
Just please let me explain

Welcoming committee
Shows their gilded city
All expenses paid for
Research and my labor

Colleagues are enlightening
But the leash is tightening
Chaining me to my pen
They just want a weapon

And I'm staying up all night
I've got your secret in my brain
Now please let me explain!

And I'm staying up all night
I've got a swelling itching brain
Now please let me explain!

Come eat drink sleep
Rest and dine
Come sit heel beg
You are mine

Now my work is unsealed
Even out the play field
Air my dissertation
On the public station

Listen to me proclaim
I won't play your war game
Capital breeds quiet
I'll incite a riot

Dodge assassination
Government damnation
Tyranny's ambition
Drives me to sedition

Write my own damn pink slip
Catch the moonlit starship
Home world who is hostile
Please reclaim your exile

credits

from SpinTunes 18 Round 2, released October 18, 2021

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