Song Review: "Space Girl" by The Imagined Village

I like the song. I like its lyrics. Its story strikes me as a cross between that of the love-searching outcast from Savage Garden's "To the Moon and Back" and that of the temporary adventurer in Train's dusty-voiced "Drops of Jupiter". (It even opens with the former's bleepity-bloppy flying saucer tones.)

The tune is pop-folk, which draws toward us-- from one direction-- a futuristic backdrop and pulls forward-- from the other direction-- an age-old theme of blinkered xenophobic mistrust, to successfully anchor both of them to the present day. The music video's diegesis begins in the Galaxy Ballroom, a guitar-shaped concert hall floating in outer space, and ends with a sprint to the band's bus on a mundane street. The journey is narrated by a woman who pioneers not only asteroids and romance but also a frontier beyond the intolerant social boundaries of which "mama" insularly warned her to steer clear.

Against rooted prejudices, the Space Girl had an adventure and brought us along with her, again and again declaring, "I did, I did, I did."

In the music, we're treated to a little bit of fiddle play directly followed by electronic effects (from 2:00 into the song to 2:20) and later accompanied by blasts from a Space Invaders laser canon (~2:35). Singer Eliza Carthy's vocals set the catchy beat just as strongly as the instruments do.

Here's the song... I hope you enjoy it as much as I have tonight, a bunch of times over:
"Space Girl" by The Imagined Village, on the album Empire & Love, released January 2010.

I first heard "Space Girl" last month in a remix sci-fi video mentioned on Bad Astronomy. The song is for general audiences, but the link to the remix video is for my nerds only. So, please, if you do watch, there's really no use protesting if you discover you're not nerd enough to identify all the TV and movie clips.


Lyrics to "Space Girl":

My mama told me I should never venture into space
But I did, I did, I did
She said no terran girl could trust the Martian race
But I did, I did, I did

A rocket pilot asked me on a voyage to go
And I was so romantic that I couldn't say no
That he was just a servo robot how was I to know
So I did, I did, I did

She told me never venture out among the asteroids
But I did, I did, I did
And she said that the Milky Way was something to avoid
And I did, I did, I did

She said that Venus was too hot and Saturn not much fun
Bug-eyed monsters tended to be just a trifle dumb
She said I'd need a blaster and I'd need a freezer gun
And I did, I did, I did

My mama told me never trust a space engineer
And yet I did, I did, I did
She said free fall and superdrive would surely cost me dear
Yes they did, they did, they did

I've been as far in hyperspace as anyone can
Travelled through the time warp in a cyborg land
They say a girl must travel far to find a superman
And yes I did, I did, I did
And yes I did, I did, I did
Oh I did, I did, I did