Song picture
Dancing around the Shadow
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Song composed for 3rd imaging workshop of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.
black hole galactic center sgr a
Artist picture
A mainly one-person band featuring strong vocals and guitar back-up, playing a variety of songs in a rock, folk, and pop blend. The songs range from science ner
Cosmos II is the pseudonym of Alan Marscher, a professor of astronomy at Boston University. Usually, he performs alone on guitar and vocals. The songs are all originals composed and copyrighted by Marscher. Some are "science nerd" songs that Cosmos II performs to science students at B.U. The majority, though, are just general songs about life, love, the pursuit of happiness and meaning, and various other random topics. Most of the songs are in English, while some are in Russian, the country where Marscher's wife, Svetlana hails from. The style is a mixture of rock, pop, and folk - what is often termed "adult contemporary." Many are humorous - e.g., "Medical Miracle" about how Viagra has revitalized a lot of middle-aged men or "Relatively Weird" about the wonders and perils of traveling around at near-light speeds. Others are philosophical, such as "All from Nothing?" about how the universe came to exist and "Elusive Truth" that asks whether absolute truth can exist. Some are just plain love songs - an example is "Together or Apart" - and others are love-is-difficult songs, like "Winter's Darkness." Laughs and tears for everyone! Marscher recorded all of the songs himself on a small digital recorder. He doesn't have loads of free time, so he hasn't worked hard enough to remove imperfections, add a drum pattern, etc. But most songs have harmony and are at least at the "demo" level of quality. Friends who have listened to them have neither gone mad nor rushed the CD to the local recycling center. More importantly to Cosmos II, Marscher can listen to them without wretching in horror over the slight mis-timings of the different tracks and other imperfections.
Song Info
Genre
Pop • Indie Pop
Charts
#30 today Peak #2
#10 in subgenre Peak #1
Author
Alan Marscher
Rights
2020 by Alan Marscher
Uploaded
May 15, 2020
Track Files
MP3
MP3 4.6 MB • 160 kbps • 4:02
Story behind the song
I was asked to compose and perform a song summarizing our experiences trying to make images of the hot plasma surround the black hole (called Sag A*, short for Sagittarius A*) at the center of our Galaxy. The workshop was unique because it occurred during the COVID-19 self-isolation period, so we all worked from home and met via Zoom.
Lyrics
Separated in isolated homes, scattered across the worlds time zones Bent over a computer on our desk, we concentrate on the daunting task To make images from noisy uv data, we need the results now, not later To present what we produce in our room to our colleagues meeting via Zoom Chorus: Sag A*, Sag A*, please reveal just what you are We're exhausted trying to figure out, but don't want to leave any doubt About exactly what each image shows; are we seeing the distant glow Of plasma dancing around the shadow as it falls toward the central black hole? Bridge: Yes, we're dancing around the shadow of our own ignorance Can the data be trusted, or are they insufficient evidence? When the brightness keeps changing and patterns keep rearranging Is it the dynamics of the emission or a bad self-calibration decision That creates a ring with bright blobs that appear to dance? [Chorus] [2 times] Ending: toward the central black hole
Comments 1
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lee1102
May 24, 2022
Congrats on yet another Top 10 smash hit. It's a shame the charting system doesn't reflect the quality of the song, which in this case sounds like it got sucked into a black hole. Work harder at improving your songs, and not improving your inflated ratings!