The Space Force unveiled it's official song
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Wow... Generic marching band music, plus high school poetry assignment level lyrics. "I want it to rhyme, but it cant be too obvious or I might look stupid" ... Setup obvious rhyme, subvert expectation, use clumsy/forced alternative to rhyme with what you subverted first rhyme with.
We're the mighty watchful eye,
Guardians beyond the blue,
The invisible front line,
Warfighters brave and true.
Boldly reaching into space,
there's no limit to our sky.
Standing guard both night and day,
We're the Space Force from on high.
We're the mighty watchful eye,
Guardians beyond the sky,
The dark beyond the blue,
Warfighters brave and true.
Boldly reaching into space,
there's no limit to our sky.
Standing guard of everyplace,
We're the Space Force from on high.
The tune bounces around quite a bit. Listen to Anchors Aweigh or the Marine Corps Hymn or even Wild Blue Yonder. They all have a more linear through-line and better melodic phrasing. This one's all over the place.
Five years in the Marines probably made me a bit biased but at least the lyrics in the Marines' Hymn has honest to ${DEITY} verbs in it: Fight, fought, took a gun, etc. I fear the Space Force hymn is sort of wishy-washy with weasel verbs: We are, reaching, standing.
Like I said, I wanted to like this and I respect the Space Force... they're the high tech people who differentiate our warfighting style and ability from other nations. They deserve a better song.
Here's a fun story a friend of mine who was an Army officer told me (Yes. We're allowed to have friends in other branches. That's why I'm not really that down on the Space Force. I just want them to have a better theme song.)
So mi amigo is going to a Dining-In (just a nice dinner where you wear your best uniform.) It's mostly Army officers at the cavalry school. 91% Army guys. 3% Navy. 3% Marines. 3% Air Force. (It turns out that Marines, Navy and Air Force folk sometimes go to Army schools 'cause some of us do cross training. I myself went to a couple of short Air Force classes and a some Army schools. I was a glorified forward observer who trained to understand how to talk on the radio with other branches about how to call in Air Force air strikes, Naval artillery and Army artillery to support Marine units and to talk to Army Batallion staff to coordinate Marine / Naval Air & Artillery to support Army units. After War2 we're all one big happy family.)
So here are a bunch of young officers at a dining in and some idiot challenges the two Marines there to sing the Marine Corps Hymn. They both stood in unison, locked to attention and belted out all three official verses, the pre-1929 verse and a couple modern extra verses, some of which aren't suitable for mixed company (we were definitely a bit more misogynistic back then. Not that we aren't now, but I think we were worse about it in the past.)
The Marine officers then challenge the Army officers to sing the Army song. By all accounts only 10% could sing the whole thing. The Air Force guys jump up and sing Wild Blue Yonder. The navy guys jump up and sing Anchors Aweigh.
The commanding general of the school is there and is... upset. For the next three weeks all the officers in training at that school had to sing the army song before they could enter the mess hall in the morning. As a bonus, they also learned the 1st Cavalry song (apparently they have a song.) Or maybe it was the cav/scout school song.
The guy who challenged the marines to sing the hymn was not the most popular guy in his unit after that.
So sure... the military is often annoying and honestly... it's really like a fraternity with guns. Amazing we all didn't shoot each other within the first 6 months. But there were some amazingly hilarious moments.