[The Thirty-Four Million Mile Tether] [ Verse 1 ] Seven months ahead through the deep black crawl Artemis V, eight survivors in all Five men and three women in a metal frame Learning every shadow, every face, every name Shoulder-to-shoulder in a pressurized room A spacecraft drifting through galactic gloom. [ Chorus 1 ] The scent of ozone and recycled sweat The only atmosphere that we have left Thirty-four million miles from our birth Too far to feel gravity pulling from Earth But isolation is a tether so tight Keeping us together in the deep black night. [ Verse 2 ] Tensions start to flare in the cramped mess hall A misplaced wrench by the bulkhead wall An unwashed cup sitting there in the sink In a space so small there is no time to think Mechanical beat of the ship’s cold heart Only thing keeping our tempers apart. [ Chorus 2 ] The scent of ozone and recycled sweat The only atmosphere that we have left Thirty-four million miles from our birth Too far to feel gravity pulling from Earth But isolation is a tether so tight Keeping us together in the deep black night. [ Bridge ] Jagged gray craters shrink down to a spark A kingdom of dust swallowed up by the dark Carbon scrubbers exhale a steady, low hum Drifting from the place where we used to come from That single white point is a needle, a sting The world on a thirty-four million mile string. [ Verse 3 ] Shouting always dies when the lights go low Watching the stars in their ancient row Silence of the void starts to descend And every broken spirit begins to mend Bound by the duty and the vacuum outside Nowhere to run and with nowhere to hide. [ Final Chorus ] Jagged gray craters of the moon left behind Finding the tether that’s left for our kind Thirty-four million miles from the world we knew The only eight people left in the view Isolation is the anchor we keep Drifting through the black and the deep. [ Outro ] Ozone and sweat The scrubbers still hum Thirty-four million miles Until we are done Tethered by silence Artemis V Tethered.
