Mars: A Video Journey

I’ve been thinking about making this video for a while now. I collected images of Mars, then searched for a piece of music that would work with them. Along the way I got to thinking of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Martian Tales which began with “John Carter of Mars”. So I added a few images of Frank Frazetta’s and one, I think, by Boris Vallejo. And the music search continued.

Suffice it to say that Mars from Holst’s “The Planets” didn’t quite work for me. And my stash of Classical didn’t seem to fit, either. Where to turn? Nowhere. I put it on hold and went back to writing and blogging and surfing the Net. But the project did not sleep easily. Yesterday at work a tune filtered into my head and I was trying to remember the words to it and the proper complete tune. When I got home I had long figured out the artist whose song I was letting wind through my head all day.

The Moody Blues’ “You Can Never Go Home”. I enjoy the Moody Blues, especially their first eight albums. You always know you’re listening to the Moody Blues when their music is playing. It’s unique. I like the way it moves from ballad to driving orchestral Rock and back again. So I played the song and realized I had something that would compliment the images pretty well.

Below is the result. It’s simply called “Mars”.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Let me know what you think, and feel free to comment on it. Enjoy!

"You Can Never Go Home"
by The Moody Blues

I don't know what I'm searching for
I never have opened the door,
Tomorrow might find me at last,
Turning my back on the past,
But, time will tell, of stars that fell,
A million years ago.
Memories can never take you back,
home, sweet home.
You can never go home anymore.

All my life I never really knew me till today,
Now I know why, I'm just another step along the way,

I lie awake for hours, I'm just waiting for the sun.
When the journey we are making has begun,
Don't deny the feeling that is stealing through your heart,
Every happy ending needs to have a start.

All my life I never really knew me till today,
Now I know why, I'm just another step along the way,

Weep no more for treasures you've been searching for in vain.
'Cos the truth is gently falling with the rain,
High above the forest lie the pastures of the sun,
Where the two that learned the secret are now one.

I don't know what I'm searching for
I never have opened the door,
Tomorrow might find me at last,
Turning my back on the past,
But, time will tell, of stars that fell,
A million years ago.
Memories can never take you back, home, sweet home.
You can never go home anymore.

Note: You may notice this is hosted at Metacafe rather than one of the usual video sharing places. When I began uploading this video in the early afternoon I ran into a plethora of ils. Suffice it to say that when I went to bed at 9:15 last night - with a 3AM wake up for work! - the video was sitting quietly at the AOL video site where it played like a 45rpm record on a 33 1/3 rpm record player. No clue why. I gave up and was ready to just quit on it. Before I left for work this morning I went to Wiki to find a listing of video sharing sites. Two of them poped up and I have this posted at LiveLeak and Metacafe. Both allow blog embeding, which is what I need, and both are fairly straight=forward in their instructions.

Blogger took over two hours, uploaded seven times, and kept erasing the post, the embed, and asking me which file I wanted to upload. *grrrr!* YouTube had some odd trouble "processing" the video. Strange since my Silent Night video uploaded and processed without a hitch. And MySpace can kiss my 'sit-upon'. What a time waster that was!

So this Mars video has been more of a journey than I ever expected. But at last it's here, done, playable. I hope you think it's worth it.