Eight years to write a four-minute song: it’s not good, is it?

Aliens (Don’t Belong)

It’s a song that explores the disconnect felt by people when they feel excluded – green people from outer space unfortunately don’t play a big part of the song’s dialogue although we will try and slip a few musical beeps and parps into the mix for those expecting an extraterrestrial odyssey.

"Houston, we have a problem" is popularly quoted as a phrase spoken during the Apollo 13, NASA space mission. That will, in addition, go into the mix somewhere now I have sourced it from the NASA website. It seems appropriate. The song has its roots embedded in the time I lived and toured in China where I landed, having travelled from the planet England. In identity terms though, ‘alien’ is still quite a universal nomenclature; many countries continue to apply it to anyone viewed as an outsider; someone belonging to a foreign country or nation.

There is also a sense of isolation for individuals who do not want or who cannot develop relationship, people who fear the strangeness of strangers, people that ‘don’t belong’ to borrow a phrase from the song. Isolation has many faces: none of them seem to wear a smile though. Franz Kafka, no stranger to the theme of alienation himself, described it as a process, an opportunity. ‘Isolation is a way to know ourselves.’ Ha, always the optimist.

This is what, Aliens (Don’t Belong) is about: the strangeness of strangers and the longing of most people to be a part of the bigger picture and the inability of some to do so.

Words:

Aliens Don’t Belong
Verse 1

In a bar town, zoo night we’re turning our backs on our own.
Like a cartoon, soon it’s over, suddenly we’re all alone,
Chorus
And then we cry we break - what is there to understand?
That when we give, we take.
We don’t belong, don’t belong.

Verse 2
Tomorrow at daylight, shadowing backwards in time.
Where I soft you and pull you closer, suddenly it’s alright.
Chorus
And, all the love we make,
Maybe tonight we will kiss the moon.
For when we give, we take.
We don’t belong.
Ꚛ PT 2
And no matter how wide, how big, or how strong
How right, you’re all wrong
We are learning to breathe.
We don’t belong.
PT 3
But we’re coming through,
We’re aliens like you; we are aliens like you.
All that I seem isn’t all that is real,
I’m trapped in a world of my own.
PT 4
So hey, get me out of here,
There’s more of them moving,
Slithering and gooving,
Dancing like ants in the sun,
Aliens just having fun (repeat)
Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun

One World


Mac & Gar