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I can't be the only one whose been ignored
for being the nerd here;
Back then my skills could be distained by you.
Our view of technology: "It's all good fun"
but you won't be seen here.
My culture's always been distained by you.
When the retro-rockets fire,
that's when you'll be undone,
for all your unkind words to nerds and poking fun
When you get to see the future,
that's when you'll see you're wrong,
'cause we're the only ones who know what's going on.
--chorus
Retro-rocket, from the past
Brings the future, coming fast
Your smugness it just can't last
Ignorance will kick your ass
Years ago you thought us cursed
What we liked you thought the worst
Watch all your perceptions burst
Retro-rocket comes in first!
--start rap ---
You made fun of our obsession with technology
you teased us, and called us names
but we always knew we were right
and now all of our hard work has paid off
Now everything is run by computers
and soon the internet will be the dominant media
You're living in our world now
So from here on, we'll be making the rules
Because of our intellectual efforts
computers have made life easier, more economical, and more convenient... for
us.
Those of us who always believed, who honed our skills
are now being rewarded beyond our wildest dreams
The rest of you have some catching up to do.
So always remember, when you stare at the screen, confused and annoyed
that we are exacting our revenge, one keystroke at a time
You're paying us back with every upgrade, and on every tech support call we
are laughing at you
Enjoy your new life... welcome to our information age.
--end rap ---
Wake up in the modern age it's all brand new, but we've always been here.
Now you're living in our world, not built for you.
But we've reached another stage, turned another page, and we've nothing to fear.
This is out revenge for all you've put us through.
When the retro-rockets fire, that's when you'll know we've won,
'cause we're the ones who've finally got it all to run.
You might think this is the future, but we don't even care.
When you arrive, you find that we're already there.
--chorus
Retro-rocket, now at last,
we can take them all to task.
Stupid questions they may ask,
in our wisdom they will bask.
For our answers, oh so terse,
you will need a data nurse.
For your hunger and your thirst,
price of knowledge fills our purse.
When your grasp exceeds your reach,
of concepts deep; and we've no time to teach,
You might exercise one brain cell or two.
If you learn it on your own, a seed is sown,
and your mind might have grown.
Maybe you'll learn that what we're feeling is true.
When the retro-rockets fire,
that's when your mind will burn
when you fill up with all the concepts that we've learned.
By the time you finally get it,
you'll ask what you were on
We've filled our bags with profits;
we've already gone.
This one is fairly straightforward. I've been a computer nerd since the earliest days of personal computers, and I was always annoyed that the culture of computer hobbists has always been ignored. Those golden days of user-groups and photocopied newsletters are gone forever, but I think those of us who were involved since the beginning have generally made a very nice life for ourselves as the world eventually came around to our way of thinking! And that is what the song is about, being a smug nerd gloating over the fact that we own the world which everybody else has to live in, a world that is still arcane and requiring of the skills we spent years building while others laughed at us.
Why is it called "Retro-Rocket"? The idea is that all of these things we did in the past have actually been our ticket to the future, so the word retro is being used in the sense of retro-style, or nostalgia. So, it's a retro rocket that brings us to our future! Get it?! Well, at least I thought it was funny.
I spent an awfully long time trying to get this song to sound right. This was one of my earliest efforts at completely digital recording, and the software really makes mixing difficult. The vocoder effects were accomplished by use of a couple of different shareware and freeware vocoders running on windows 95. I actually devote 4 tracks to the vocoded choruses, one for the unvocoded vocal (to help with consonant sounds), two for a stereo vocoded signal with 18 bands, and one for a monophonic vocoder with 128 bands (I think that is what it was... it's hard to remember... you can set it up to 4096 bands.) The carrier signal was created by playing just the backing chords in the sequencer and then sampling the output. The left-right bouncing organ sound is actually a string sound with the attack and decay cut off. Except for the guitar, the backing was entirely played on my PC sound card. I'm still not satisfied with the mixing, but I can't work on the song forever...
Oh, and the nifty Retro-Rocket patch was taken from a design for a patch from "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" (the patch originally said "Space Cadet", I modified it in a paint program.
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