a7 "piece of heaven (central seven remix)"
I’m not even really sure that I have the whole song. I wonder what kind of music we’ll be listening to once we have private spacecraft. You know, when we’re all flying around in a Ford Focus with fusion engines, or a Honda Civic that gets 5 AU per gram of antimatter. (OK, this kind of fantasy requires that there is actually somewhere to go, and somehow to get there without having to traverse all the empty light years of space between star systems. But this is not my point.)
Are you allowed to play music when you’re in a fighter plane? (Because by extension, would you be allowed to have play when you’re in a fighter starship?) I remember when we were in high school, me and B would play “Wing Commander” (Hmmm, what’s the proper way to cite a computer game? With quotes or italics?) It was pretty cool. He would do most of the flying, but I would take care of the weaponry. (Like making sure that we had enough missiles, and cycling through so that he had the right weapon on.) Hmmm. I forget how we divvied up the controls so that we both had to be involved. Anyway, our soundtrack as we flew missions was The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” some Soft Cell (I especially remember listening to “Sex Dwarf” while blowing away some Kilrathi starfighters), and maybe even some Front 242.
But. My point. If you could have a soundtrack while you were in a starfighter (or, more likely, if you were watching a movie involving a starship battle sequence) this remix of “Piece of Heaven” would be the way to go. (You know, I could actually see a practical use for music inside of combat craft. They pointed it out in this anime, “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” where they would synchronize the actions of a battlegroup by training them while listening to the same music. Anyway.)
The mix starts out with what sound like klaxons, probably announcing an enemy attack. “Battlestations!” Then the sirens drop out, leaving a low frequency alternating rhythm that I swear comes straight out of Robotech, like when they’re dodging missiles or getting a lock on their target. This plays, I imagine, as the starfighters launch from the capital ship. Then, as the ships hit deep space, the mix launches into a frenetic twisting turning, mimicking the s-curves, twists, and dives that the ships make as they try to evade the enemy missiles. Finally, the sounds fall back to the low-frequency rhythm as the fighter craft close in on the last target, with the song ending as the last enemy ship is blown to smithereens.
Man, I’m whacked. I imagined all this without even taking mind-altering substances.