At 08:57 AM 5/2/98 +1000, you wrote:
>What is the reference to the poem?
>
>Do you have a complete electronic version? If so, post it to the group!
>
>Mike
>
Mike (and all),
I'm sure some of the younger list members already know.
It's a rock song, 80's vintage, and one that nearly brings
tears to my eyes. In a future where small minds have taken
over, and the internal combustion engine is banned, a young
man drives his uncle's old car, a 150MM Ferrari. While the
machine mentioned in the song is of such "royal" blood, the
song was inspired by a fiction piece run in Road & Track
about an MGB.
My friends, this is why we have to drive these cars...it is
life, burning fuel to move, even if waste heat is the primary
product. Geeze, as I tell all my "save the earth" friends, the
gasoline engine is about as efficient as a human being.
For those interested, the song was inspired by the story
"A Nice Morning Drive" by Richard S. Foster. There's a link
to this story on the Team Sanctuary page.
-Keith Wheeler
Team Sanctuary http://www.teamsanctuary.com/
>From the Album "Moving Pictures" by the Canadian rock band "Rush":
Red Barchetta
My uncle has a country place,
that no one knows about.
He says it used to be a farm
before the Motor Law.
And on Sundays, I elude the "Eyes"
and hop the turbine freight -
to far outside the wire
where my white-haired uncle waits.
Jump to the ground as the turbo slows to cross the borderline.
Run like the wind as excitement shivers up and down my spine.
Down in his barn, my uncle preserved for me an old machine - for 50 odd
years. To keep it as new has been his dearest dream.
I strip away the old debris
that hides the shining car.
a brilliant red Barchetta from a
better vanished time.
Fire up the willing engine,
responding with a roar!
Tires spitting gravel I commit my weekly crime.
Wind in my hair, shifting and drifting.
-- mechanical music,
-- adrenalin surge.....
Well weathered leather, hot metal and oil, the scented country air.
Sunlight on chrome, the blur of the landscape, every nerve aware!
Suddenly ahead of me,
across the mountain side,
a gleaming alloy air car shoots towards
me two lanes wide.
I spin around with shrieking tires
to run the deadly race;
go screaming through the valley as
another joins the chase.
Drive like the wind, straining the limits of machine and man.
Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I've got a desperate plan.
At the one lane bridge I leave the giants stranded at the riverside.
Race back to the farm to dream with my uncle at the fireside.
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