PerSimmons:

Filk Book

Goddard Passage

My most requested piece, it has slipped out beyond my narrow filk circle and is occasionally attributed to other, better-known filkers.

Pre-dating the Columbia disaster, the last verse was updated in 2003 following our second Shuttle tragedy.

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GODDARD PASSAGE

Tune © by Stan Rogers                                                              Lyrics © by Wm. Mark Simmons

Ah, for one last flight I would take the Goddard Passage

To rise on flames of freedom past the Moon and on toward Mars

Leaving far behind Terra’s past, so dark and savage

And take the Goddard Passage to the Stars

I think on Allan Shepherd in those fabled days of yore

The first American to go where “no man had gone before”

He rode the mighty Redstone and did race with gravity

To launch the project Men called Mercury

Ah, for one last flight I would take the Goddard Passage

To rise on flames of freedom past the Moon and on toward Mars

Leaving far behind Terra’s past, so dark and savage

And take the Goddard Passage to the Stars

I think on Virgil Grissom and his final sacrifice

How he rode the second capsule and then flew the Gemini

But still the moon did beckon and did lead him with desire

But Apollo One became his funeral pyre

Ah, for one last flight I would take the Goddard Passage

To rise on flames of freedom past the Moon and on toward Mars

Leaving far behind Terra’s past, so dark and savage

And take the Goddard Passage to the Stars

I think on John Glenn’s orbits and those first walks out in space

Of those who pushed the boundaries for all the human race

And then The Eagle landed and the whole wide world did see

Footsteps on the sea Men call Tranquility

Ah, for one last flight I would take the Goddard Passage

To rise on flames of freedom past the Moon and on toward Mars

Leaving far behind Terra’s past, so dark and savage

And take the Goddard Passage to the Stars

I think on how we almost took our eyes off of the prize

When Challenger and Columbia were fires in the skies

But still the stars do beckon; we must conquer all our fears

Each new frontier takes its toll in lives and tears

Ah, for one last flight I would take the Goddard Passage

To rise on flames of freedom past the Moon and on toward Mars

Leaving far behind Terra’s past, so dark and savage

And take the Goddard Passage to the Stars

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