New Star Rising

New Star Rising

There’s a new star rising in the west,
and it’s coming from the place,
that we know must be the best.
The nights are growing longer,
feel the power getting stronger,
put the people of the old ways to the test.

Along the horizon, lines of dust.
In the prisons, bars of rust.
Nothing left in the ancient halls of trust.
There’s a new star rising.

Old stars setting in the east,
now begin the preparation,
for the celebration feast.
As the new star shines brighter,
feel your troubles getting lighter,
sing the songs that have been taught you for the day.

Patrician, you fake magician,
you’d better run.
The boys you’ve been feeding with lies,
have learned to use your gun.
They’re screaming in the classrooms,
the time they say is now.
There’s a new star rising,
they know where and how.

They’re yelling in the streets,
and the sight is so sweet,
there’s a new star of which they speak,
there’s a new star rising.
Along the horizon, lines of dust.
In the prisons, bars of rust.
Nothing left in the ancient halls of trust.
There’s a new star rising.

When I wrote New Star Rising sometime in the mid to late 1970s (another one I haven’t got a date for) I wasn’t trying to make a political point about west versus east or east versus west, that was all too obvious, the Cold War was a thing and we all lived under the shadow of the mushroom cloud…
Didn’t we?

No, I suppose we didn’t really but there were reminders in popular culture. I was, what’s the word? Enthralled? Captivated? I took notice of the 1964 film “Fail Safe”, I was intrigued by the storyline wherein a US bomber, carrying a nuclear weapon to be dropped on Moscow after receiving erroneous information from a glitchy computer which suggested that a Soviet attack is in progress on the US, passes its fail-safe point, the point beyond which it can’t be recalled. That’s my precis of the film, there’s more to it of course but I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t already seen it although I will opine that it’s not a happy ending…

Anyway, shadow of the mushroom cloud apart, New Star Rising wasn’t meant as a political thing, more of a, “let’s turn things on their head shall we” thing. Stars rise in the east, as do the sun and the planets and although east and west are simply the convention we use, it could have easily been some other thing, some other word but it would still have been over to the right as you are facing north, if we are going to stick with these conventions.

And immediately I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of immense proportions because “right” and “north” are also part and parcel of those conventions and now I don’t know which way I’m facing, and which way is up… In my defence I will say that west rhymes with best and that’s my only reason for having a new star rise there.

I wrote New Star Rising as a song, I envisioned verse – chorus – verse – instrumental break – verse – verse. Oh, if only I’d learned how to write music back in the seventies, I could have been a struggling rock star by now.