World’s eyes riveted to a Florida winter day
On seven souls bearing a cross-section of the USA
In a gleaming white spaceship lifting off over the ocean
White smoke puffball of a sudden distant explosion
What happened? Why did you have to go like that?
What happened to you came at the drop of a hat
You took our dreams higher and higher
You rode into the sky on a beam of light and a pillar of fire
Challenger
What went wrong?
Challenger
We waited so long
You carried a dream like a torch held high
Then you became seven stars in the night sky
Teacher, doctor, engineer—who thought
That any kind of person could be an astronaut
When I was a kid I’d see people like you in the comics or the movies
And my eyes would never move when I saw it on live TV
How many other kids watched the screen all over the country
And said Mom someday that’s gonna be me
You took our dreams higher and higher
You rode into the sky on a beam of light and a pillar of fire
Challenger ...
You put your lives into the hands of fate
And made it all the way to heaven’s gate
You slipped free of the world on the way into space
You slipped free of the bonds of earth to touch G-d’s face
From all of us who knew what you were worth
From all of us who dreamed of getting off planet earth
From all of us though we may never have met you
We bid you goodbye but we never will forget you
Challenger ...
© 2024 The Hesh Inc.
The Challenger disaster was one of those events, like the assassination of President Kennedy or the moon landing, where you remember where you were when you heard the news. I was serving in the Israel Defense Forces at the time, doing guard duty at a base in the northern part of the country.
Admittedly, the geographic distance put me at a remove from the grief that people in the United States were experiencing. But I remembered how much I was a fan and follower of the space program when I was a kid, and this disaster made me very sad, even on the other side of the world. Sad enough to want to write a song, of course.
This came during a particularly prolific period in my songwriting history. The lyrics came pretty quickly, after reading the accounts in the newsmagazines of the event itself and of President Reagan's consolation speech. I composed the music on the piano the next time I was home on leave; it was influenced by some of ELO's midtempo ballads from that band's Out of the Blue era. It was only fitting, considering the 'space' theme of that album's cover. Never recorded or performed, though. RIP to the Space Shuttle Challenger's crew:
Christa McAuliffe
Gregory Jarvis
Judy Resnik (first Jewish astronaut!)
Dick Scobee
Ronald McNair
Michael Smith
Ellison Onizuka
May their memories be for a blessing.