Out of This World

A tribute to a childhood hero of mine. This is a song about Donald Campbell’s attempt to set a water speed record of over 300 mph on 4th January 1967. The song was composed in 1995 and inspired the effort to recover both Campbell’s body and the Bluebird K7 jet boat in which Campbell crashed, from the water. The recovery was finally undertaken in 2001, and both Steve Hogarth and Steve Rothery of Marillion were invited. The video is made up of clips from the BBC TV film Across the Lake from 1988, staring Anthony Hopkins. The film used a reconstruction of Bluebird K7 plus archive footage of the real boat in 1966 and 1967, both of which can be seen here. Acknowledgment: I am deeply indebted to AmarokUK whose original attempt at combining the two is so beautiful and inspired me to do likewise. “Three hundred miles an hour on water In your purpose-built machine No one dared to call a boat Screaming blue Out of this world Make history This is your day Bluebird“ “At such speeds, things fly“ “What did she say? I know the pain of too much tenderness Wondering when or if you’ll come back again Wanting to live for you And being banned from giving“ “But only love will turn you around Only love will turn you around Only love Only love will turn you around So we live you and I Either side of the edge And we run and we scream With the dilated stare Of obsession and dreaming What the hell do we want Is it only to go Where nobody has gone A better way than the herd Sing a different song Till you’re running the ledge To the gasp from the crowd Spinning round in your head Everything that she said“