Today’s installment is over Tracks 7, 8, and 9 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.
Go here for comments on Tracks 4, 5, and 6.


Track 7 – Ransom vs. the Unman

Straight forward Rat-a-Tat-Tat-Tat-Tat drumming, well placed palm-muted guitars, punk-rock guitar pick slides denoting the transition into the Chorus.  Track 7 and 8 lyrically draw from Lewis’ Perelandra and That Hideous Strength. Growing up with Blaster was a blessing. I was a kid raised on a farm in mid-central Indiana, smack in the middle of corn fields, and Blaster was a musical and literary gateway to things outside the normal planetary rotation of rural Hoosier life.

Into the nightmare monster’s embrace

The teeth and the claws and the jaws of the face

The ripping of skin and the reeking of breath

The real life enacting of myth

(For he loved not his life unto death) 

[Chorus]

Ransom! vs. The Unman!

Ransom! The Unman!

Ransom The Unman!

Ransom The Unman! (4x) 

He flung himself on the death that was living

“His hands taught him terrible things . . .

He felt its ribs break . . . heard its jaw-bone

crack.”

As they pummeled and scraped and attacked

(But he’s not of those who shrink back)

repeat Chorus

“In the sphere of Venus I learned war.

In this age Saturn will descend.

I am the Pendragon” (C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength). 

Macrobes! Macrobes!

Here come the Heads!

The Chosen Heads of the Bodiless Men

Macrobes! Macrobes!

Here come the Heads!

Here come the Chosen Heads

of the Bodiless (Men)

From ape to man to god

by rape we plant the pod

to propagate the fraud

From ape to man to god

by rape we plant the pod

to liquidate the body

You could be a vessel for

that hideous . . . strength

You could be the gateway

The time is here

They’re drawing near

Can you feel the tension

from another dimension?

Leave flesh behind.

There’s only mind.

Or set the brain apart

to elevate the heart

Whatever happened to the individual? (N.I.C.E.)

Where is his soul? (R.A.P.E)

(As you walk along the brightly lit corridors

you hear a soothing, androgynous voice

overhead.)

“Welcome to the National Institute for

Coordinated Experiments where we offer

Rationalized Alternatives to Plausible

Evidence,” etc.

There’s no unity

in your dichotomy

Section by section

dissection

Vivid vivisection

at the point of integration

with no relation

to the whole

You’ve no choice left you

but to make

an irrational leap of faith

For the Macrobes are marching over you!

Marching Macrobes

Marching

Macrobes on the march (cha! cha! cha!)

This is an instrumental “surf-rock” sounding song with Spanish counting thrown in for good measure, “Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro!” Conventional guitar riff opener eventually transitioning into a reverberated guitar phrasing, and “Cinco, Seis, Siete, Ocho!”