A Matter of Time

The announced topic for the FilKONtario songwriting contest this year was "Time Travel". As it happens, this is one of my favorite themes, so I figured I should take a shot at it.

As I cast about for ideas, I remembered Larry Niven's statement (possibly borrowed from someone else) that if it were possible to travel back in time and change history, then eventually we would end up with a timeline where time travel was never invented. This seemed inordinately pessimistic to me, so I tried to think of ways around this.

I must have done ok. I won the contest, much to my surprise.

      Am7         Em7     G                 D
We're ghosts in a bubble, traveling through history.
Am7         Em7       G            D
Ghosts in a bubble, unraveling the mystery.
Am7           Em7        G          D
Searching for answers surreal and sublime
         C/G              D
And it's just a matter of time.


       Em7          A              C/G             D
We can look, we can listen, but we can't touch the stream.
    Em7             A             C/G         D
The ripples that we make might do something extreme.
    Em7     A             C/G      D
The past is safe from our temporal team,
C/G                   B7
Locked in a bubble of time.
   Em7           A           C/G          D
We shift through time and we shift out of phase.
    Em7           A           C/G       D
The only thing we steal are a couple of rays
       Em7          A               C/G      D
And we always shift back before the bubble decays,
C/G                            B7 
Bringing back the knowledge is prime.

We're the astro team and we make the long run,
Watching planets form in the dust ‘round the sun.
Seeing magma glow on a world just begun,
Safe within our bubble, we ride.
Now we're gonna find out what we wanted to know.
We've hardened our bubble ‘gainst the Big Bang's glow.
We're gonna shift back and watch the universe blow.
It's gonna be a helluva ride.

(Bridge)
        Em7                        Asus2
There's nothing to see and there's plenty to fear,
       Em7                   Asus2
‘Cause time and space aren't functioning here
        Em7                           Asus2
And the Bang should blow and it would all be fine
       Em7                         Asus2
And we try to shift home, but it's all the same

All the way up the line.


Who made the laws that make the universe go?
And we look at the nothing and I think that I know.
There's a paradox of time that is lurking below,
Waiting for a chance to unwind.
And we'll never go home, ‘cause we're filling the need
Of a supersaturated world awaiting a seed,
So blow up the bubble, let the universe feed.
We're the source from which all things are defined.

(Chorus twice)