Jim Ocean Music > Discography > Macro2Micro
Macro2Micro
Macro2Micro is the first of two planned albums in a genre we’re calling “poetic science”. The songs use recent scientific discovery as a metaphorical launching point to explore the nuances of being human in these very interesting times that we all find ourselves in.
Jim’s written about 20 of these songs so far, 12 of which are included in “Macro2Micro. Watch for the second CD, Math2Metaphor before too long. The double album set will eventually be released under the title “M2M”.
Macro2Micro
Macro2Micro
From atoms to galaxies, from rivers to blood vessels, “Macro to Micro” explores the beautiful patterns of our existence. A majestic, uplifting pop piece with hints of Bruce Hornsby
Coming of Age in the Milky Way
Inspired by Dr. Timothy Ferris’ great book of the same name. A celebration of our species’ long evolution. A crazy blend of honky-tonk piano, rock n roll guitar, and a ‘Buddhist Rap’ verse
Said the Dark to the Light
Inspired by the “dark matter” problem whereby most of the universe’s apparent mass is invisible. This song gives dark matter a voice as if it were singing to the luminous visible universe, who it longs to be seen by. A ‘Beauty and the Beast’ tale as we slowly look into the darkness to see what it really is
The First To Go Under
Inspired by the plight of the people of the Maldives Islands, this song speaks to the sad fate that awaits many as the effects of global warming intensify
Plastilla!
A satirical song about the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. Shocked to life in a ‘fierce electric storm’ a new monster is born. Plastilla wreaks havoc as a Salsa band flees for their lives
The Sidewalk Astronomer
A biographical tribute to John Lowry Dobson who founded the Sidewalk Astronomers organization to raise consciousness about the universe. A beautiful, passionate ballad
Dark Matter
An astronomer, a physicist, and a biologist ponder the mysteries of the unknown in the midst of their daily routines. Music is mysterious with a middle-eastern feel, and some unusual instrumentation
The Loneliest Thing in the World
A tribute to the NASA team that launched the Mars Rovers. A ballad exploring the feelings we have for these amazing machines and the otherworldly outposts of our collective intelligence
Four Per Cent
According to Richard Dawkins, and other scientists, humans only perceive 4% of reality. A song about humility–or the lack of it. A sociological rock song with a funky rhythm driving the message
She's So Cold
A lively number with a driving rhythm section that posits that it might be best to let Lady Antarctica continue her long, cold slumber
The Lovelock Dilemma
Dedicated to scientist James Lovelock and the Gaia hypothesis, this folk ballad explores both his predictions of population collapse and the human tendency to deny evidence and “kill the messenger”
Sugar in Space
Inspired by the discovery that life’s first “proto-food” is simple sugars found in star clusters. A hopeful song about abundance in the universe, about hidden potential and support from that which on the surface appears to be an empty, desolate vacuum. Has a psychedelic and East Indian rhythm and feel
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OceanSongs Discography
Coming of Age in the Milky Way
By Jim Ocean
Playful as otters
Poisonous as snakes
We’re descended from things
That would make your heart ache
Fast as a falcon or
Slow as a snail
We’ve the instincts of insects
And the dreams of a whale
This is the age of recovery
From all that we’ve done
This is the age of discovery
As we stare at the sun
Embrace a bright heart
For the sake of our kind
And leave the mind of the reptile far behind
Leave the mind of the reptile far behind.
Coming of age in the Milky Way (2X)
(“I love you baby ‘cause you’re coming of age!”)
Graceful as spiders
Fragile as cells
We should be shedding our skins
And breaking free of our shells
Living our lives
Like a blue bottle fly
But we’ve learned how to love
And we’ve learned how to cry
We’re Earth’s adolescents
We’re about to be weaned
In a test of our species
In a test of our genes
Stay close to your love
Stay close to your dreams
Be more of a human
And less a machine
Be more of a human
And less a machine….
Coming of age in the Milky Way (2X)
Clever as virus we’re as
Strong as a horse
We’re descended from things
That go back to the source
Deep as the ocean and
High as a cloud
Keep asking the question
And say it out loud
Keep asking the question
What is life all about?
Coming of age in the Milky Way…
(Repeat fade…)
Said the Dark to the Light
by Jim Ocean ©2011
I will hold, I will keep you
I have made you a home
Galaxies to enfold you
You won’t be alone
I will hold us together
I’ll keep you in sight
Shelter you from the weather
Said the dark to the light
I was there in the beginning
I was there at the birth
When the stars started singing
I heard your Sun and your Earth
You’re the snow on my mountain
And you shine so bright
Like a sail on a black sea
Said the dark to the light
Open your mind to me
And you’ll see I’ve always been there
I know that you can’t see me
But I’m everywhere
I’m everywhere…
I’ve been waiting to meet you
Like a long lost friend
I’ve been wanting to feel you
Coming close in the end
‘Cause we live in a story
With so much to write
Someday soon you will know me
Said the dark to the light
Said the dark to the light
Said the dark to the light
We are woven together
We are woven together….
The First To Go Under
© Jim Ocean 2009
They’ll be the first to go under
The first ones displaced
The first to seek shelter
From the sea’s rising waves
It’ll make such strange history
They’ll be the first to go under the sea
Everything under
Under three feet
One hundred million people
All in retreat
It’ll make such sad history
They’ll be the first to go under the sea
Goodbye to the palm trees
Goodbye to the sands
Goodbye to the sunset
On low lying islands
And we’ll watch it all on TV
They’ll be the first to go under
The first to go under…
They’ll be the first to go under the sea
Plastilla!
by Jim Ocean, © 2010
Plastilla coalesced
In a fierce electric storm
Over the North Pacific Gyre
He took a massive breath
It echoed off the clouds
And crackled ‘round the Earth like fire
The next thing that we knew
Were the ships floating like jellyfish
With suffocated passengers and crews
The satellite photos
Showed a wall of water coming
Heading for the North Pacific Coast
Oh No! Plastilla! (3X)
Corre, corre, corre por tu vida!
Better run for your life!
Plastilla hit the shore
He swallowed Anchorage first
Then took Seattle with a plastic roar
Before we could react
Portland was attacked
He spread his wax up the Columbia River Gorge
We sent the submarines
Who fired all their means
But he just kept roiling to the south
We knew that we were doomed
When he swallowed all our nukes
And just blew smoke rings from his mouth
Oh No! Plastilla! (3X)
Corre corre corre por tu vida!
Better run for your life!
We barely had time
To make it out alive
We headed east as fast as we could go
We stared down from a peak
And watched that plastic sheet
Cover the Bay and Mt. Diablo
Now we’re stranded here in Denver
Where the Rockies bitter winter
Has slowed his plasticene tide
We have time for one more song
As a way to say “So long…”
As he crests the Continental Divide…
Oh No! Plastilla (3X)
He wants to shrinkwrap the Earth
Juego, juego, juego terminado!
Game over man!
Plastilla
by Jim Ocean, copyright 2010
Plastilla coalesced
In a fierce electric storm
Over the North Pacific Gyre
He took a massive breath
It echoed off the clouds
And crackled ‘round the Earth like fire
The next thing that we knew
Were the ships floating like jellyfish
With suffocated passengers and crews
The satellite photos
Showed a wall of water coming
Heading for the North Pacific Coast
Oh No! Plastilla! (3X)
Corre, corre, corre por tu vida!
Better run for your life!
Plastilla hit the shore
He swallowed Anchorage first
Then took Seattle with a plastic roar
Before we could react
Portland was attacked
He spread his wax up the Columbia River Gorge
We sent the submarines
Who fired all their means
But he just kept roiling to the south
We knew that we were doomed
When he swallowed all our nukes
And just blew smoke rings from his mouth
Oh No! Plastilla! (3X)
Corre corre corre por tu vida!
Better run for your life!
We barely had time
To make it out alive
We headed east as fast as we could go
We stared down from a peak
And watched that plastic sheet
Cover the Bay and Mt. Diablo
Now we’re stranded here in Denver
Where the Rockies bitter winter
Has slowed his plasticene tide
We have time for one more song
As a way to say “So long…”
As he crests the Continental Divide…
Oh No! Plastilla (3X)
He wants to shrinkwrap the Earth
Juego, juego, juego terminado!
Game over man!
Plastilla
by Jim Ocean, copyright 2010
Plastilla coalesced
In a fierce electric storm
Over the North Pacific Gyre
He took a massive breath
It echoed off the clouds
And crackled ‘round the Earth like fire
The next thing that we knew
Were the ships floating like jellyfish
With suffocated passengers and crews
The satellite photos
Showed a wall of water coming
Heading for the North Pacific Coast
Oh No! Plastilla! (3X)
Corre, corre, corre por tu vida!
Better run for your life!
Plastilla hit the shore
He swallowed Anchorage first
Then took Seattle with a plastic roar
Before we could react
Portland was attacked
He spread his wax up the Columbia River Gorge
We sent the submarines
Who fired all their means
But he just kept roiling to the south
We knew that we were doomed
When he swallowed all our nukes
And just blew smoke rings from his mouth
Oh No! Plastilla! (3X)
Corre corre corre por tu vida!
Better run for your life!
We barely had time
To make it out alive
We headed east as fast as we could go
We stared down from a peak
And watched that plastic sheet
Cover the Bay and Mt. Diablo
Now we’re stranded here in Denver
Where the Rockies bitter winter
Has slowed his plasticene tide
We have time for one more song
As a way to say “So long…”
As he crests the Continental Divide…
Oh No! Plastilla (3X)
He wants to shrinkwrap the Earth
Juego, juego, juego terminado!
Game over man!
The Sidewalk Astronomer
Copyright / Jim Ocean / 2010
On a clear San Francisco night
When the fog’s way out past the Farallons
And there’s a sliver of a moon shining on Berkeley
John Lowry Dobson calls to me
From the sidewalk he says:
“Come see the moon tonight.”
“Come see the Universe and all the light.”
“It’s traveled for so long.”
“Oh please don’t turn away.”
“Come see the turning of the Milky Way.”
“It’s playing like a song…
It’s playing like a song…
Just like a song.”
He shows me the mountains on the Moon… he says:
“They’re as high as the Andes…”
And though it’s cold tonight he’s alright
There’s a light inside him burning bright
I feel it, then I say goodnight
And to the next curious eyes he says:
“Come see the moon tonight.”
“Come see the Universe and all the light.”
“It’s traveled for so long.”
“Oh please don’t turn away.”
“Come see the turning of the Milky Way.”
It’s playing like a song…
It’s playing like a song…
It’s playing like a song…
It’s playing like a song…
Just like a song.”
On a clear San Franciscan night
I saw the shadows of the mountains
The mountains on the Moon.
The Sidewalk Astronomer
Copyright / Jim Ocean / 2010
On a clear San Francisco night
When the fog’s way out past the Farallons
And there’s a sliver of a moon shining on Berkeley
John Lowry Dobson calls to me
From the sidewalk he says:
“Come see the moon tonight.”
“Come see the Universe and all the light.”
“It’s traveled for so long.”
“Oh please don’t turn away.”
“Come see the turning of the Milky Way.”
“It’s playing like a song…
It’s playing like a song…
Just like a song.”
He shows me the mountains on the Moon… he says:
“They’re as high as the Andes…”
And though it’s cold tonight he’s alright
There’s a light inside him burning bright
I feel it, then I say goodnight
And to the next curious eyes he says:
“Come see the moon tonight.”
“Come see the Universe and all the light.”
“It’s traveled for so long.”
“Oh please don’t turn away.”
“Come see the turning of the Milky Way.”
It’s playing like a song…
It’s playing like a song…
It’s playing like a song…
It’s playing like a song…
Just like a song.”
On a clear San Franciscan night
I saw the shadows of the mountains
The mountains on the Moon.
Dark Matter
by Jim Ocean
© 2009, Jim Ocean Music
Astronomers lay awake in their beds at night
The thought in their heads there’s more dark matter than light
They stare through their ceilings as they drift off to sleep
Dreaming of dark invisible things in the deep
Stretching out in the night
With the universe, there in sight
Grab a star, hold on tight
Physicist try, they try hard to be cool
About all those things that they learned back in school
Like no matter what you might think of this place
Love it or hate it, it’s just all empty space
Sinking down in your skin
There’s a universe there within
And where you end, you begin
Biologists act so detached, so blasé
Dissecting a heart is just so passé
But where did the love go that lived deep in the vein?
Did it leave in the air? Will it return through the rain?
Flowing out through your blood
Sinking down in the mud
Life is meant to be loved
The Loneliest Thing in the World
© Jim Ocean/2010
The loneliest thing in the world
Is not on this earth
It’s on another world
So far away
So far from home…
The loneliest sight in the world
Is the bright empty plain
Of a red Martian sunset
Where the weather is cold
And gets into your bones…
And the dust and the ghosts
That cover your world make it hard
Hearing your words
And the earth is just
Another star in the sky…
The loneliest wait
Is the time that it takes
For your voice to travel through space
Twenty minutes of holding your breath
For a view…
And the scene that unfolds
Of a dry ancient sea that’s so old
Water is memory
Lying deep in the ground
Under your feet
And the sound of your wheels
I can hear almost feel
When I close my eyes
From the Earth I’m just
Another star in the sky…
The loneliest thing in the world
Is not on this earth
It’s on another world
So far away
So far from home…
Millions of miles
Is a long way from home.
Four Percent
© Jim Ocean
Four percent
That’s all we know
Four percent is
That’s all we see
Four per cent
That’s all that shows
Four percent of reality
Every person
Every drop of water
Every apple
Every apple tree
All our worries
Every time you hurry
All the fury
Inside you and me is just…
Four percent
That’s all we know
Four percent is
That’s all we see
Four percent
That’s all that shows
Four per cent of reality
Every mountain
Every coin in every fountain
Not to mention you and me
Every mission
Every politician
Swallowed whole by a big black sea
How vast does the universe
Have to be
Before we embrace humility…
How deep do we have to go
Before we can ever feel at home
In the mystery…
Every poem
Anything that you could show ‘em
All your dreams and reveries
All our fables
All our lies and labels
Ayatollahs, Rabbis, Monks and Thieves….
With so much left to understand
You’d think we’d all extend a hand
To each other
If we all could see the Earth from space
We’d feel it in our gut this place
Is our Mother.
Four percent
That’s all we know
Four percent is
That’s all we see
Four percent
That’s all that shows
Four percent of reality.
She’s So Cold
By Jim Ocean
Forty Five million years
She has turned a cold shoulder to the sun
And her tears
Were the things that trapped old Shackleton
In the ice her embrace
Is a frozen kind of yearning
She’s a dangerous place
But she keeps this world from burning
She’s so cold…
She is not fond of changes
She has swallowed whole mountain ranges
Two miles deep
It’s best if you just let her sleep
She’s the kind of a woman
Better run for cover when she’s warmin’
Leave her alone
She is made of ice and stone
She’s so cold…
She’s a beast
She’s a demon
She’s the coldest kind of dreamin’
She is white
She is blue
She’s the fairy tale that scares you
Like the ice in your freezer
Don’t chip her off
Don’t even tease her
Look in her eyes
And she’ll turn your world to ice
She’s so cold…
The Lovelock Dilemma
© Jim Ocean
What are we gonna do about James Lovelock?
He says that the earth is alive
He says that the earth is gonna weed us
He says that the earth will survive us…
Should we burn his books
Put a gag in his mouth
Tie him up like a crook
Send him way down south
Put him out on the ice
As it’s melting away
Melting away…
What are we gonna do about James Lovelock?
He says that the earth will abide
He says that the earth is gonna bleed us
He says that the earth will do just fine
Without us…
Should we call him a name
Should we call him a flake
Take a match and a flame
Say he’s made a mistake
Galileo was jailed
And nearly burned at the stake
Say you’ve made a mistake
Oh James….
Oh Gaia!
Oh Gaia!
What are we gonna do about James Lovelock?
He says that the earth is alive
He says that the earth…
He says that the earth is alive.
Sugar in Space
© 2011 Jim Ocean
Sugar in Space
Bread crumbs through the darkness
Water everywhere
A place for life anywhere…
There’s rain in a cloud
And fish in the sea
There’s worms in the ground
There’s love in you and me
In the vacuum of space
Sweetness abounds
Making a place
Where life can evolve
And something for love to keep surviving
Something for love
To keep finding a way
Nothing’s a word
For something unseen
You know that the void
Has tricks up it’s sleeves
In the vacuum of space
Sweetness dissolves
Making a place where
Life can evolve
Something for love
Something for feeling
Something for love
To keep believing like
Sugar in space
Breadcrumbs through the darkness
Water everywhere
A place for life anywhere
Sugar in space
Stones to walk the river
Water…
A place for love anywhere
Some folks think the stars
Are ancient points of light
And some folks think the stars
Are atoms that ignite
Some folks think the stars
Are proof that there is faith
And some folks say the stars are making
Sugar in space…
Macro to Micro
© 2011 Jim Ocean
We are small
The smallest thing
You’ve ever seen
We are small
Our reality may be fantasy
We are vast as space
Bigger than the Milky Way
We can grow so wide
There’s a universe inside
I know…
(chorus)
Macro to Micro
Micro to Macro and
Macro to Micro again
Small as the atom
Large as the universe
Macro to Micro again
We are young
Younger than a baby born yesterday
We are young
We can barely form words to say
We are old
We’ve been around a long, long time
Old as dirt
Older than the stars that shine…
(repeat chorus)
Feel your blood
Flowing through the rivers in your arms
Feel your love
Flowing on forever to the stars
We are tall
Taller than the tallest tale
You’d fabricate
We are tall
The stories in our DNA
Replicate
We are short
Our melodies don’t last that long
Short and sweet
Singing in an endless song
(repeat chorus)