There’s a star that they call Astronomer’s Regret
One quarter the distance from hell to our shores
It’s said if you point your scope towards that star
You’ll go blind, you’ll go mad, you’ll be scoured by scars

But do you believe what the fact gougers say…?

June felt like popcorn at the end of a film
All dried out, congealed, and worn down to the grain
So she mailed her decision
By passenger pigeon
Grabbed her pet theories and hopped on a plane

She met Corpus Christos on the long plane ride over
He put the “Southern Man” in “Southern Manitoba”
He wouldn’t leave the cabin without proper disclosure
They were married at customs drinking value-added ambrosia

Corpus swindled the nickels right out of June’s canvas
To pay for his phony tour guide to Atlantis
From 3 grand a week
Down to shitting in the street
She resorted to selling her spare blood to Guinness

By September, June knew the streets of Vienna
Like a painter can tell brown red from burnt sienna
She scryed societal meltdown through a jury rigged antenna
The bridges and crossings were the epicenter


Sixteen days later, June washed up on shore
Clinging to kelp and her last cigarette
Penniless and battered
Ambitions in tatters
But each bruise is proof they haven’t killed her yet

She found herself back in the city she fled
She’d always heard the voices, now she knew what they said
As the mountains turned canyons and rivers ran red
The satellites all point to Astronomer’s Regret

There’s a star that they call Astronomer’s Regret
Three quarters the distance from heaven to here
As soon as you see it you stare with surprise
You can’t move a muscle just watch hypnotized
As the sun rises fiery and burns off your eyes
You thank its harsh mercy for blinding the skies
What appears on the star? Half fiction, wholly lies
The minute that everybody you love dies
The spiders that sew cosmic webs for us flies
That there’s no great reason why we’re all still alive
So while you draw breath, repeat through your sweat

(pause)

Each bruise is proof the bastards haven’t killed you yet
(After 1 or 2, add backing vocal: Astronomer’s Regret!)