BIG BLUE SKY
Released April 22, 2021
Spotify URI: spotify:track:0IeIhK95C4k9sYaDPgeHqA
Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/0IeIhK95C4k9sYaDPgeHqA
Amazon Music ASIN: B08ZYVPK3X
Amazon Music Link: https://music.amazon.com/albums/B08ZYVR1X4
Apple Music ID: 1560003756
Apple Music Link: https://music.apple.com/album/1560003425?i=1560003756
Press Release
The very first conspiracy theory probably had something to do with a cave, a jaguar, and firewood. “How come some of the elders never get eaten on their way back from gathering kindling in the moonlight? Oh, ask Habilis the Proto-Sapien; he has some fascinating explanations!”
In other words, this stuff is ancient: how in the opaqueness between the powerful and the powerless, we invent certainties. It’s all good fun… up to a point.
The world, and America in particular, lives beyond that point too often now.
“Big Blue Sky” is the latest collaboration between Indie-Chill act Date Night and gothic Indie-Pop singer Chris Robley (who’s been praised by KEXP, No Depression, The LA Times, and more). Following up their earlier collab “True North” (which broke a million streams on Spotify) this new song traces the story of principal JFK-assassination actors Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby.
It reminds us that conspiracies, both real and imagined, seem big; but its players are actual people whose lives take on an inevitable trajectory only in hindsight or at a great distance. As Ruby puts it in the song, “Let’s get on with this dance the world has saved for me and you.”
The music is a mix of exultant 90s dance grooves, saxophones from an early 80s Bowie hit, and a simple, nostalgic folk-pop progression in the style of Paul Simon.
It’s a much better way to spend 4 minutes than inching down a rabbit hole.
ISRC:
QZES52182205
UPC:
196053267184
Lyrics
Ruby waits for Oswald who’s bound for county jail
Thinks buddy life’s the coffin, I’m just your final nail
Maybe all the world’s a stage, they say, though we rarely choose the rolls From the halls of the Kremlin down to the Grassy Knoll
Little blue balloon in a big blue sky
Goodbye, balloon, goodbye
When I was five my daddy bought a helium balloon
but I let it go and watched to see if it could reach the moon
He slapped me once and told me, son, the things you’re born to do
Sometimes you find they’re bound to go on even without you
Little blue balloon, in a big blue sky
Goodbye, balloon, goodbye
Your mother called you Harvey
And she told you not to dream
The kids all called me Sparky
cuz I was quick and I was mean
There’s a story no one’s written
Though it’s countless times retold
And it changes with the telling
like a game of telephone
Ruby looks at Oswald and steps up through the crowd
Sometimes the things you never say will echo twice as loud
Hey buddy, we can’t help it, rumors do what rumors do
So let’s get on with this dance the world has saved for me and you
Little blue balloon, in a big blue sky
Goodbye, balloon, goodbye