SPACE ESCAPADE

SIDE ONE:

SHOOTING STAR The roar of the rockets recedes after takeoff, and we loosen our seatbelts to enjoy our first space cocktail. Perhaps on another spaceship a pair of lovers looked out of a porthole and saw the firestreak of our rockets...and made a wish.

MOONSCAPE As the heavy door of the spaceship opens slowly, into our view comes a quiet, bleak surface with grey-blue craters. It is awesome, frightening, majestic in its stillness.

MR. ROBOT On out first visit to a planet, we arrive in the midst of the festivities of the Martian Gras. An intercosmos incident is almost created when a crew member approaches a group of dancing spzdtrls with the demand, "Take me to your leader!" A few cries of "Earthling, go home!" soon die down as apologies are made, and the festival continues, with earth visitors included.

THE CITY From a distance we see the crystal spires of another metropolis, glistening in the light of the faraway sun. A misty fog filters over the city...perhaps under it life is bustling...or perhaps there are only the ruins of long gone splendor.

A DISTANT STAR From a romantic spot called Planetary Point, we find a tiny star to wish upon. We realize that we're looking beyond what's over the rainbow, into a land no lullaby ever mentioned.

THE COMMUTER Jetmobiles roar through early Solar City traffic. Their frenzied speed gives rise to vertigo, until we realize that crashes are now extinct, with electric fields keeping travellers safely at arm's length.

SIDE TWO:

WINDS OF SIRIUS We hear a gentle sound...or do we? Do they have sound, those chilly winds in outer space...or are they silent, and is the murmur we hear only an echo of the chill we feel?

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOON Only experience makes us fully realize that this hemisphere, unlike the cold emptiness people often assign to it, is really a lovers' retreat, where not even the scientist's telescope can probe the darker-than-darkness of its nights.

SOMEWHERE IN SPACE The quaint traditions connected with the crossing of the equator are preserved even in this space-era. The party is as gay as ever, only the occasion is different...leaving the earth's atmosphere. Behind, we can see the familiar yet strange sphere, slowly falling away from us.

EARTH LIGHT As we sneak away from the rest of the group to a deserted observation room, the earth's warm blue glow somehow makes seconds out of hours. Long after the earthbeams fade, their magic dust lingers on.

THE LADY IS BLUE Bored but beautiful, the blue queen of the solar village makes a quick gesture with her hand, and a curious assortment of odd beings materializes, performing a strange and sensuous dance to amuse her. Another impatient whisk, and they're gone. As Mr. Baxter insists (from experience!), her color is of skin, not of mood.

SATURDAY NIGHT ON SATURN Our last night is as festive as the first, and the indescribable effects of the Saturnian pxqoil will harken us back again, for the herbs from which it is brewed cannot be grown on earth.

Les Baxter: Space Escapade LP © Capitol Records ST-968