'Io!
Mo'oni!
'Io!
Mo'oni!
'Io!
Mo'oni!
'Io!
Mo'oni!
Who among us hasn't sinned
The church bells' constant din
Tells us day out and in
How much we need to pray
'Io!
Screaming yellow zonkers
The 4:30 bongin'
No one sleeps in Tonga
Not too late anyway
Mo'oni!
Limp home late from kava
She's pounding out the tapa
Faka faka faka!
Then nap during the day
'Io!
The barking of the dogs
The squealing of the hogs
There's no sleeping like a log
Not in Tonga anyway
Mo'oni!
[traditional song]
Hens cluck and roosters crow
Cars cruise 'cause they don't know
The house where they should go
No street signs point the way
'Io!
And so they showed up late
And so you had to wait
On the world's Line of Date
Tomorrow is yesterday
Mo'oni!
Since nothing's right in Tonga
Nothing's wrong in Tonga
That'll be five pa'anga
Malo e lelei!
'Io!
[traditional song]
We don't fear global warming
With fifty years of warning
The ferry leaves its mooring
And then we really pray
Mo'oni!
Depletion of the ozone?
Tsunami or a cyclone?
Text me on my cell phone
High ground's not far away
'Io!
Burn Nuku'alofa?
Wake me when it's over
'Ofa 'ofa 'ofa!
And let love win the day
Mo'oni!
[traditional song]
In the Land Where Time Begins
The future isn't penned
But is there a way to win?
Has our chance been pissed away?
'Ikai!
From Sydney to Salt Lake
Just looking for a break
A future we can make
Should we go or should we stay?
Ko hai 'ilo?
If I cross the Date Line
Where Time Begins is still mine
I'm at the end of all time
As Tongan as today!
'Io!
[traditional song]
I'm at the end of all time
As Tongan as today!
Mo'oni!
I'm at the end of all time
As Tongan as today!
'Io!
I'm at the end of all time
As Tongan as today!
Mo'oni!
I'm at the end of all time
As Tongan as today!
'Io!
Among other projects such as my dissertation, I continued to collect popular music about outer space, a project I had begun in early 2009 purely for the enjoyment of Meleline, myself, and whoever else might be interested. I had now accumulated nearly 70 hours of material that I considered listenable, and there was more in the reject pile. Particularly interesting to me was Soviet era and modern Russian music as a window into the culture of the other longstanding human spaceflight nation. I had organised my collection chronologically, and I had interspersed three hours of voice clips from manned missions to give the music historical context. With the 50th anniversary of manned spaceflight coming up in 2011, I wondered whether there might be a business opportunity. I asked Michael Cassutt, a long time friend who was a space historian, science fiction author, and television writer and producer, whether he had any contacts in the recording business that might be useful. His response was disappointing, but it made sense. "My guess is that a space-themed project is going to have a relatively narrow slice of the audience at that.... look at space-related books in the book world."
Based on the trends I was seeing in my music collection, I wasn't surprised. In his blog, Keith Cowing had recently asked, regarding the lack of public response to the cancelation of Constellation, "Where's the outrage?"
I described the music trends to Michael "The chart shows the hours of space music I have accumulated, by year, by three categories: USA, USSR/Russia, and the rest of the world. This is an indicator of the music component of 'space culture.' First, note the similarity between the USA trend line and NASA funding. Second, note that the rest of the world passed the US in space music production in 2002 and has left it far behind. Not only that, but for the first time ever, Russian space culture is passing the US in music production. The centre of space culture has moved outside the US, so if there is any outrage over the killing of Constellation, one must look for it outside the US. I think the US just became a second-rate space-launching nation, and it's because not enough Americans give a damn."
Mike wrote back, "Before you can ask 'where's the outrage?' you have to ask, 'who knows about Constellation in the first place?' In the past six years or so, I have never met a SINGLE person outside the space community -- that is, astronauts, contractors, commentators -- who ever HEARD of the damned thing. I spent a year trying to pitch a series about the next step in [human spaceflight], beyond the Shuttle, to some very smart folks at AMC.... and they were amazed, flabbergasted, confused and otherwise totally ignorant of the plans that existed, pre 2010. The same goes for family, business acquaintances, etc."
It was a reasonable hypothesis that the vitality of a nation's space endeavours flowed from its culture. In a nation where human spaceflight was off the public's radar screen, where else could government funding go but into oblivion? The Soviet/Russian space experience had suffered from communist mismanagement, low tech, and economic collapse, but never, it seemed, from lack of will. I suspected that what I had so far discovered of the Russian musical culture of cosmonautics was only the tip of the iceberg due to my limited facility with the language as well as the probable relative dearth of Internet sources compared to the totality of that culture's production. I wanted to explore these issues further, but I needed help. I opened my pet project to the Society and Aerospace Technology Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Vadim Rygalov, a professor in the University of North Dakota's Department of Space Studies, was happy to join the project. Vadim had known about my project since late 2009, and we had exchanged some music. He would certainly fill in my weaknesses with regard to knowledge of Russian language and culture. Additionally, I thought that it be helpful to have a musicologist, preferably one who had some knowledge of the history of spaceflight, on the project. We needed more co-researchers. Meanwhile, I helped Meleline write a short article on the subject for the AIAA's glossy magazine Aerospace America.
One day I wore a T-shirt that I had had custom made from one of my high school pencil drawings. It was from a famous photograph of Edwin Aldrin looking at the various experiments he and Neil Armstrong had deployed at Tranquility Base, and it included the American flag and the Lunar Module Eagle in the distance. I wonder whether our visiting instructor in mathematics, Noah, was having a bad day of miscommunication, was being deliberately obtuse, or was joking, because it was hard to believe he was really that ignorant. He asked me what was on my shirt and I explained my drawing to him. "So you were there?" he asked. Well, weren't you? Weren't we all? But then Noah and Meleline chanced to have a short conversation about the paper she was writing for presentation at the AIAA's upcoming Space 2010 symposium, "The Rise of the Transnational State: Space Logistics, Sovereignty, and Diaspora off the Earth," and he remarked that it sounded like science fiction. Nothing else he could have said would have been more insulting to her.
Thomas Gangale's Song Lyrics and Free Verses
Thomas Gangale's Tales of Tonga
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