After stealing the aliens' ship and more than 5 years of travel away from Earth, the humans have arrived at their destination. No amount of study, training, and automation can really make up for reliance on a computer with all its data in a language no one understands. In the end, there is just the minute of terror when the chips are down.
The second part of the song is all wonder and inspiration, with just the barest hint of maybe something more sinister queued up for later on in the story. Kind of going for "This is the Moment" from Jekyll & Hyde, which on its face is optimistic even though you know it's going to turn out tragically. Let's just say the reference to "manifest destiny" is there on purpose (as is the more subtle reference to Pocahontas).
Other parallels include the "purple dot" refrain being almost identical to "for the glory of Gleeble Glorp". A group of beings landing on an alien planet to take for themselves? Hmm…
lyrics
Purple Dot:
Fit the thing to the other thing. Maybe that’ll
Compensate for that odd base-12 quirk.
Out of time, what was once a dot’s everywhere and
How the hell does any of this crap work?
Oilcup down on the gudgeon pin.
Buckle up now, ‘cause we’re comin’ in.
What’s that sound, and are we spinning?
“Just aim”, they said, “for the purple dot”.
Now there’s flame instead of a purple dot
Five years to fly to the purple dot
Only to die, only to die, WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!
Something Like Home:
Touchdown. Screams of panic yielding to the
Hushed sound of everybody wond’ring if the
Plasma drive exploded or misfired. Are we
Still alive? Or is this just what happens when you’re not?
Touchdown. Organic matter crunching under
Crushed ground. A scent of life in currents off of
Purple seas. Something like bitumen rings
Encircle trees, or things that are the closest things we’ve got.
This is the dot we’ve aimed for.
This is the world we’ve claimed as home.
Future. Everything depending on the
Root you’re praying takes a fancy to a
Lilac wood. The depth of a connection only
Understood with sinking of your toes into the soil.
Freedom. Counseling ourselves on what to
Become. Anticipating moments when you
Feel again that that long deserved bonus of
Tequila when a sunset nods approval of your toil.
This is a fated tenure.
This is the feeling when you’re home,
Home on the strange, stranger than fiction
How a change can bring on the same without contradiction.
Purple! Everything is so insanely
Purple! Everything is full of possi-
Bility. Stress and love and danger and tran-
Quility, all limited by nothing but your drive.
Onward! 30 billion tattoos of a
Songbird sing of hope for bringing out the
Best in you, achieving what you’re manifestly
Destined to instead of merely coming out alive.
A new-colored wind to sing like
About and within something like home!
Purple Dot revisited:
This day we fall on a purple dot.
This tale we scrawl on a purple dot
Begins with calling this purple dot home!
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