Tuesdays with Blaster at Tree & The Seed: TMWAJ – Tracks 4, 5, and 6

Today’s installment is over Tracks 4, 5, and 6 of Blaster the Rocket Man’s 1999 release, The Monster Who Ate Jesus.

Go here for initial comments on album and the linear notes.
Go here for comments on Tracks 1, 2, and 3.

Track 4 – Stampede!

This is a cowboy punk-rock anthem about a stampede of intergalactic cattle/celestial beasts. Musically quite fun, a very rowdy song, and was a crowd favorite at shows. This song is the first track on Blaster’s Live CD (Disc 2 of The Anatomy of a Monster), which, as far as live albums go, is a pretty rough record from a production standpoint. However, punk-rock generally hast not placed much merit in the metrics of production.

Stampede is lyrically a lot of fun. Anytime a song allows me to chant “Stampede!!!” and “Yippy ki ay!” and “Whoa hoss, easy fella!” it makes me giddy like a kid again. As enjoyable as that is, lyrically the song is a neat allegory with a twist of fantasy. 

Out on the range one night
We saw a strange sight comin’ right out of the sky
It was a monster herd of the unheard of
Livestock of the Cosmos
A multifarious multitude of intergalactic cattle
Well, round here we don’t take kindly
to no otherworldly
And a cowboy’s gotta’ do what a cowboy’s gotta do
I took my rifle from the saddle and my lassoo too
Let’s round us up some supper, boys!
Ride ’em fast! Ride ’em hard!
(Chasin’ the Devil’s herd)
Move along, move along, move along
lil’ dogies!
(Drivin’ the monsters from the Earth)
Yippy ki ay, Yippy ki oh
Keep that cattle movin’
Got it rollin’ to the killin’
Gonna’ rope up the unwillin’
Saw a rocketship wagon
driving’ hideous horses
Had the whole team in its tractor beam
They gave an awful, eerie scream
that chilled my blood and spooked my steed
but I shook it off and took aim at the cockpit
Well, the boys were firin’ too
and we all know we hit our target
as we watched the spacecraft
goin’ down in flames
Then our eyes bugged in surprise
as the skies turned into chaos
The herd was loose
STAMPEDE!
Steady boys, there’s gonna’ be noise!
Ride ’em fast! Ride ’em hard!
(Chasin’ the Devil’s herd)
Move along, move along, move along
lil’ dogies!
(Drivin’ the monsters from Earth)
Yippy ki ay, Yippy ki oh
Keep that cattle movin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ rawhide!
We’ll kill ’em when we catch ’em on earthside
I’m back on the range
to keep the strange from further invasion
Protecting my family and my property
I’m back on the range
to keep the strange from further invasion
Protecting my family and my property
I’m back in the saddle again
where you don’t know who’s your friend
and the queer-horned cattle feed
on the lonely, bluish weed
Sometimes at night
I hear the mournful cryin’
of bestial extra-terrestrials
Whoah hoss. Easy fella’


Track 5 – Human Fly Trap (Our Hero Escapes from Venus)

The following is the introduction to track 5 in the album’s linear notes.

In the seemingly limitless possibilities of science fiction there are many Venuses to be explored. Let not this one be confused with Lewis’s transcendent vision of Perelandra which is referred to elsewhere on this album. In fact, it is basically an alternate reality of the  Perelandrian paradise in that it shares  her sensuous beauty but not her unfallen state.

This “evil twin” is not a New Eden, but a False Eden that entices its isolated explorers toward self-gratification which slowly transmogrifies them into a suitable food for consumption – namely, the Fly. (And how does this half-human, half-fly monster escape, you ask? by eating Jesus, of course!)”

This song begins with delayed guitars and also has some excellent keys/organ parts. Lyrically this is a song that reveals its narrative’s moral by antithesis–the Hero has mutated into half-fly/half-human and in order to escape this “False Eden” he must “FLY” (as in fly away, flight, run away). He is caught in a False Eden, a world that has teeth. This Hero is caught in the trap of a False Eden/Venus Fly-Man Eater. However, this is a Salvation story. Our Hero escapes. He escapes because the Lord severs him from the “maw of death”. Salvation and grace, indeed.

Report #1 to Space Station:
“How very breathable the air is here.
My head is clear. I have no fear.
Sensuous is the status
of my sensory apparatus.
My research is going quite well
and I’ve been getting to know my self
While chasing the planetary standard.
Embracing this land in all her grandeur
with open arms and all five senses
and to her charms I feel defenseless.
But I have dreams where it seems
my body has a fly head
and a fly has my head!
Can’t anybody hear that little fly
on the wall screaming?
It’s got a tiny human head
screaming, screaming for help!”
A heart to harden
in a carnivorous green garden
of sentient, bionic botany
gigantic mouth closing down on me!

Report #2 to Space Station:
“Can you see me on this communication?
I’ve changed. I’m a mutation.
A variation of you former friend.
But all you see can see is this
hideous head of a fly!
Don’t try to rescue me.
Oh no, no this planet’s all my own.
Won’t you just leave me alone?
(Who knew this world had teeth?
Into it I go and down beneath.)
Can’t anybody hear that little fly
on the wall screaming?
It’s got a tiny human head
screaming, screaming for help!”

Linear Note — The following fragment of a transcript was found
in a blood stained notebook lying open near the
scene of carnage. A similarly bloodied stylus was
also found, with which the message was presumably
written.

“If the shuttle is leaving
I’ll not be cleaving.
Lord, sever me
from this maw of death.
The same word that describes what I have become
also defines my graciously given means of escape.
To flee. To run away”
FLY!
FLY!
FLY!

Track 6 – [Untitled]

The entirety of this track is an excerpt from Out of the Silent Planet, the first book in C.S. Lewis’ sci-fi/space trilogy. The spoken word is over background noises, mechanical yet organic droning with incremental thuds (I can’t decide if it is akin to a heartbeat or something sounding-like-the-noise-that-is-made-inside-of-a-car-trunk while a car commutes over a long bridge). This excerpt is the introduction to Track 7 – “Ransom vs. the Unman” (anticipation!). 

No insect-like, vermiculite or crustacean Abominable,
no twitching feelers, rasping wings, slimy coils,
curling tentacles, no monstrous union of superhuman
intelligence and insatiable cruelty seemed to him
anything but likely on an alien world. He saw in
imagination various incompatible monstrosities –
bulbous eyes, grinning jaws, horns, stings, mandibles.
Loathing of insects, loathing of snakes, loathing
of things that squashed and squelched, all played
their horrible symphonies over his nerves. But the
reality would be worse: it would be an extra-
terrestrial otherness – something one had never
thought of, never could have thought of. In that
moment Ransom made a decision . . .