Astronaut

Quiet and mute, you go on your journey,
And, weightless, draw circles across the deep blue.
You look in the distance and need only the stars;
astronauts are so happy, just being alone.

And, if everything here tonight should just explode,
what is it that you've really risked?
Was there nothing to lose? Really, no one to lose?
To you it's all the same--the people banal,
and this whole stupid, little world's second best.

You torment yourself, you roll in your bed;
you don't sleep anymore, don't even eat.
You're so stuck as you tumble through space and through time,
because nothing can hold you, nothing delights you,
so nothing can ever be missed.
How did your heart ever get so worn out?

Among the planets you play Blind Man's Bluff--
so indescribable the light and the views--
you go chasing rockets and bright shooting stars,
but it's life down here you never see.

So you look in the distance, you need only the stars;
astronauts are so happy just being alone.
You dream of adventures with monsters so mean,
aliens and dragons and, oh, so much more:
astronauts really have to be brave!

And, if everything here tonight should just explode,
you have nothing to lose,
to you it's all the same--
the people banal,
and, since nothing quite matters,
you feel so abandoned
and as dark and as cold as the moon.

Words and music by Anna Depenbusch
Translated by Frank Beck

• VIDEO: Anna Depenbush sings Astronaut in Hamburg, 2011
• The song's lyrics in German
• My profile of Anna Depenbusch

'Astronaut' comes from the 2011 album, Die Mathematik der Anna Depenbusch