What I see and hear in the Kansas
song
"Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel"
What I see and hear in the Kansas
song
"Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel"
| Ever since the morning of January
28th, 1986, when seven American heroes soared into eternity aboard the
Space Shuttle Challenger, I have remembered their fateful flight
in terms of the song "Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel." Written
by Kerry Livgren to be "the quintessential Kansas song" and recorded for
Kansas' 1975 album Masque, the song's mood and lyrics are to my
mind hauntingly prophetic of the events of that cold, brilliant Florida
morning more than a decade after "Icarus" was written. The reference
in the song's title to the Greek myth of Icarus, who himself braved the
heavens only to be betrayed by his own reckless faith in the work of human
hands, has also prompted me to view the Challenger disaster in terms
of that myth and the myth in terms of the disaster, both focused upon each
other through the lens of the song "Icarus."
On this page I have placed a collection of multimedia samples that represent some of the "audio-visions" that play in my mind when I listen to "Icarus." These video files have been compressed using the DivX ;-) MPEG4 Video Codec 3.20alpha release, which may be downloaded here and which is required to view these videos. QuickTime does not recognize the DivX codec; Windows Media Player must be set as the default AVI player. After you install the DivX codec, click on the images below to see and hear the accompanying samples. If you should experience difficulty downloading and installing the DivX codec, please contact me at dataman @ datamanos2.com and I will be happy to help you as best as I can to resolve the problem. The listed download times are approximations
for a 56kbps modem connection.
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| Prelude:
Icarus was merely the first... |
A gallery of heroes:
the honored dead |
"Icarus" launch sequence:
Challenger ascending |
"Skies of Ice and Fire": heavenward
beyond
the speed of sound |
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Originally these four segments consisted of four files with a combined size of 10.5 megabytes. DivX encoding has allowed me to remaster the video as a single file at a higher frame rate and the audio at a higher bit rate while actually reducing the total file size to 4.6 megabytes (a 14 minute download). Click on any one of the above images to download the file. |
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"Earth
So Far Below Me...":
"Challenger, go at throttle up..." DivX remastered (1.5 MB AVI video; 35 seconds) (5 minute download) |
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"The
Mountains of the Sky":
"...obviously a major malfunction..." (1.4 MB AVI video; 13 seconds) (4 minute download) |
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"Wings
of Steel":
T-38 "missing man" flyover (2.0 MB AVI video; 15 seconds) (6 minute download) |
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"Icarus"
finale:
"...they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye..." (3.1 MB AVI video; 27 seconds) (9 minute download) |
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