125. The Lying Machine Just Turned On!

125. "The Launch/Cool the Engines" by Boston

Here's my favorite video featuring "Cool the Engines." (That's a lie!)



Boston's Third Stage album was the soundtrack to my 1988 courtship of Julie. Listening to Third Stage on the speakers inside the black step-side Chevy pickup on my 22nd birthday while driving home from our picnic at Jenny Lake with Julie sitting next to me--so AWESOME! The album had come out two years earlier while I was in Sweden, so it was old music for her, but it sounded new to me.

"Cool the Engines is one of those songs that is much better when you hear the lead-in song that ties into it. (Like how "Another Brick in the Wall Part 1" makes "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" so much better.) In this case, "The Launch" gives "Cool the Engines" a sense of anticipation that is deliciously fulfilled with the opening guitar riff.

The following video was the only one I could find with both "The Launch" and "Cool the Engines" in one unbroken song. If you like the space shuttle, you may think it's the best thing ever. If you hate the space shuttle, close your eyes until the music stops.



"The Launch" is also one of those songs that inspired a movie scene inside my head that goes with the song. The song has a heroic quality to it that I think goes beyond the heroism of astronauts. I won't give you the entire backstory, because I don't have one. But I imagine this scene in which a former special forces type guy is in an underground facility where the bad dudes with machine guns are holding dozens of kids hostage. This guy doesn't believe in God, but his older brother--who died trying to rescue his own daughter from these bad dudes--tried to convince this guy repeatedly that he just needed to have faith, and God would protect him. Of course, the bad dudes torture this guy till they think he's dead. But he's just almost dead. That's when the scene and music begins.

0:04-0:59  The guy opens his one good eye and sees a light appear above his head. A young girl dressed in a white robe--an angel, but without wings--descends until she stands hovering behind his head. She lays her hands on his head and closes her eyes. When she removes her hands, his wounds are healed. He sits up and faces the girl. The angel reaches into her robe and withdraws a gleaming sword. She places the sword in his hand before kissing him on the head. She then ascends back into the light.

1:00-1:45 Cut to scene of a door being kicked open by the guy. Holding the sword in front of him, he wades into a group of the bad guys and starts slaying them all. Some of them get to their guns and start shooting him. You can see his flesh being hit by the bullets, but they have no effect on him. He continues to advance on them and kills them with the sword. With all of the men dead, he opens another door in the room and sees...

1:46-2:13 ...all of the children being held hostage. He see's his niece, who runs to him and hugs him, even though he's drenched in blood. He takes her by the hand and leads the children out of room and down a hall to where a thick steel door bars their escape to the outside. The man holds up the sword and points it at the door, and we see flames erupt from the blade, and....

2:14-2:37 ...from the outside we see the door blown outward in an explosion, and the man and children emerge from the smoke to freedom. While the other children run, the man collapses on the ground and his niece stands over him. He reaches up to touch her face, smiles at her, and says, "Thank God." She's crying but smiles back at him. Then he closes his eyes and dies.

2:37-2:55 The camera slowly zooms out from above, showing the dead man clutching the sword, his niece crying over his body. As the shot rises higher and higher, the light around him and the girl grows brighter and brighter until...

I don't know what happens after that. But that's the movie scene in my head that goes with that soundtrack in my ears. Somewhere in the movie after that scene we'd learn that the guy had never expressed faith in God before, but the little girl believed, and after she saw her father die, she had prayed to God to be rescued by her uncle, and he did.

Someday I'll write the story that goes around that scene. For now, you'll just have to imagine the scene without any idea how the dude got to where he is and then replace the idea of spaceships and aliens appearing with the idea of angels appearing--kind of like "Come Sail Away" in reverse.