Tangent Not As Good As The Book
Called into life comes a man knuckled down, broken in, but already working
Slightly bemused by the new world he finds himself in
Adopting his thoughts to environments strange and bizarre,
He never thought to encounter,
Running his fingers through things he once read of in books
And all of it seems so unclear
It's not the future he once held so dear
But there's always tomorrow, always today
There's always something in the way
He grew up with Eagle - computers that plotted his courses to far distant planets
But ended up in a grey office suite with Excel
Now he finds routes to the goals of his peers
And the vast empty space of their pockets
Crossing the vacuum that lies between sci-fi and hell
And all of it just seems so drear
It's not the future he once held so dear
But there's always tomorrow, always today
There's always something in the way
And is this the dream I had as a child?
To see moons from whatever side...
Exploring space with flashing lights
To ride in the pod a Virgil's right
To boldly go where no man has gone before
To take chicks to settle the score
I smile and push the key
And see Uncle Microsoft smiling right back at me
If I could take on those adventures
Have I reached the point where I'd rather stay at home
And is the comfort of the slippers worth trading
For an evening in the Federation Neutral Zone?
It's half past nine on Tuesday morning
And still nobody's landed yet on Mars
Buf if I get my quota finished there might be time
For a swift half in the bar
What happened to me?
Was it a turning that I took?
What happened to the future?
It's not as good as the book
They went to space in an old tin of beans haphazardly strapped to a firework,
With less than a ZX81 to direct them back home....
We sit here with Gigs (abytes) and just twiddle our thumbs
While personalising our desktops
Raising the firewalls and hoping the heatshields can hold
I watched Buzz Aldrin step out of the tin, to the Moon and start his adventure
That seems to end here with a nice coloured "skin" for my phone
I see those steps through a digital stream and a mass of hot burning plasma
Neatly wrapped up on a 50 inch screen in my home
And though the pictures aren't clear
There's so much more there that I'm wanting here
And there's always tomorrow, always today
There's always something in the way
(The future never looks
Like it reads in the books)
